Introduction to Awakening: 13 Steps to Love,

Freedom, and Power

Why would you be reading this book? I intuit there was something about the title

that captured your attention. Who wouldn’t want greater love, freedom, and power?

I can’t imagine that anyone would say they didn’t want more of those qualities, but

there has to be an underlying belief or drive that you can have them for you to seek

and attain them. And that simply is not in the make-up of a great many people. Life

is simply the way it is, and that’s that is a predominant, underlying outlook. But you

are here, reading, and that’s a tribute that there is something in you beyond

ordinary humanity’s subconscious resistance to change. It’s my intention to inspire

you to amp up that desire because the stronger it is, the greater will be your ability

to access and realize greater love, freedom, and power in whatever way you desire.

From my reading and experience, I have begun to truly glimpse that life’s potential

is truly unlimited, and that we can not only continually be more than we are

experiencing, but the realization of that potential is the true intention and mandate

of life. And that outlook is the fuel for the discovery of life’s unlimitedness. It is the

passion for new possibilities that leads us ever onward, and the key behind that

driving passion is self-awareness-the realization of who we are, which is the most

essential and valuable knowledge there is.

The 13 steps invite the realization and the anchoring of that awareness in

consciousness, and it can be of great value to you, whether you are new to that

understanding or already know who you are at the deepest level of your being.
However, it is not easy to live from that awareness on this planet. We are strongly

conditioned into forgetfulness, and we grew up with many false conditionings such

when we are told about the Tooth Fairy, that Santa Klaus will bring you a present,

but only if you are good, that you better be careful because God is watching

everything you do, or that “money doesn’t grow on trees” and you have to struggle

to make money. Conditioning and the energy of consensus awareness does not

foster awakening or staying awake. Even though self-awareness had been my

primary study and focus for most of my adult life, in the month of march of 2010, I

suddenly, without any reason I am aware of, lapsed into unconscious, mundane

living and needed a spiritual invitation, a spiritual book, spiritual connections, and a

reviewing of the principles and the energy in this book to lift me up and help me

move even higher up on the evolving path than I had previously been on.

So, even for the people who have found their footing on the journey to the life of

increasing value and happiness, this book can be of value because there are

diversions that can de-rail us, the journey is never-ending, we all need to hone and

maintain our focus on that which uplifts and advances us, and the book is filled with

many great, inspirational quotes to help us do this and exercises to keep us on

track. So, the book potentially has value for everyone, although there are certainly

those who have gone beyond the wisdom presented here.

The un-awakened and the awakened life are radically different. I know because I

have lived in and tasted both of them. They are like night and day, so different that

a person in an un-awakened state probably has no idea of what his awakened

experience will be like, and that makes it challenging to wake up because we don’t

know the value and excitement of what we are waking up to. But excitement waits

around everyone’s corner because life actually encourages discovery, growth, and
expansion. It holds endless and unimagined possibilities, but we have to glimpse

that it does to move on the journey. That glimpse is truly the wow factor in life.

Hopefully, this book will either open such an amazing door for you or encourage you

further along the magnificent adventure.

Life actually conspires to awaken us, and sometimes it actually seems that way.

About three months ago in March of 2010, I was becoming, for some unknown

reason, an aspiring couch potato. I was eating a lot, sleeping a lot, and I started

watching a lot of Ultimate Fighting almost every night on TV, which was very

unusual. I don’t generally like fighting. Then, an email came from James Twyman,

who wrote Emissary of Love, inviting me to enter The Next Top Author Contest. In

my un-inspiring fog, I let the offer sit in my computer in-box for a few days. Then, a

couple of days later, I thought, “why not, what have I got to lose? I already have a

book that’s been sitting around for seven years gathering dust.” That’s all it took for

lightening to strike and radical transformation to begin.

You just don’t know where one, new step that you can take at any time will bring

you. And, shortly, there are 13 wonderful ones waiting for you to expand your

capacity for love, freedom, and power. A sincere intention and a step in a new and

positive direction often seem to initiate an attractive force that draws new

opportunities to help you advance upon your chosen path.

Entering the contest was the magical initiative for me. Then, along came a book,

called Outrageous Mastery by Sasha Xarrian that alchemically transformed my

life. I was sixty-nine years old, an age not usually primed for an emergence, but

opportunity waits upon everyone and is always a possibility, regardless of age or

circumstance. I had read many books about the law of attraction and manifestation,

but none of them delivered the impact and transformational energy that this one
did. And the circumstances out of which the author created a wonderful life were

extremely constricting and limiting. She had been cast aside without support by

husband and family, who were very wealthy, and thrown into a world she knew

nothing about, alone, without friends, without the supporting faith in the Mormon

religion that she had previously totally depended upon and dedicated her life to,

with no money, no home, and six children to raise. Try that on for a challenging

circumstance. When the meteor of her book collided with me and my world, it

propelled me into an entirely new dimension of awareness, feeling, and super

readiness for action, and I was electrically convinced I could and would realize

unrealized possibilities.

While reading the book, I realized the author and I are both messengers of the new

truth that humanity is waking up to- that every individual is a magnificent creator

with an unlimited potential and a unique gift for the world. I knew about that truth

and potential, but I had not manifested it and proven its truth to myself

experientially. I had written a book called Entertaining Enlightenment: 13 Steps

on the Ultimate Journey 7 years ago, but never published it; I had created a

guided imagery CD, called The Wonder of Wonders about how to access and

experience our hidden, but real and true self, but never made it available to the

public; and I had written hundreds of interesting poems about the great spiritual

experience, but I never gathered them into a book and published it. I was a force-

field of wisdom, gifts, and good intentions, always getting ready to pour my

abundance into the universe, but I never delivered. And at the end of seven years, I

was even beginning to lose my cosmic awareness and experience to some degree,

and my drive to share was falling into lethargy and forgetfulness.

That’s when my re-awakening began with that one single choice to enter the

contest. Then, Christian Pankhurst, who had won The Next Top Author Contest in

England and was one of the coaches on the Top Author site, gave me the next

motivational nudge that was to radically transform my life. He suggested I join Face

Book and begin doing social networking, which turned out to be another huge step

into an unknown, unexplored, new world with entirely new possibilities.

As soon as I began making friends and joining groups, I was back in my element,

and life took on a new excitement and possibility. I was surprised and pleased with

the wonderful people I met on Facebook, their friendliness, readiness for social

connection, and willingness to help, the synergy of the right people showing up at

the right time and the right place, with each of us exchanging gifts and

opportunities of great and equal value, the coalition of groups joining together to

contribute to and to change the world, and all the onrush of new information,

connections, and energy that steadily came, and still comes, toward me. Once

again, I had a calling and a passion, but I knew this time I would not stop short of

ever continuing growth and success.

The whole experience reminds me to whole-heartedly encourage everyone to never

quit seeking until you find your purpose and passion. There’s nothing like it.

Carolynn Myss aptly asks, “Do you really want to look back on your life and see how

wonderful it could have been if you were not afraid to live it?” Or do you want to

have to negatively answer the questions that Brendon Burchard asked after his near

death, car accident experience when he thought his life was over. “Did I live, did I

love. Did I even matter?”

Find your passion and get a life injection. New horizons will loom and you will enter

the world of magical possibilities. All of this waits for and upon you. All that is
required is desire, willingness, and being open to newness. And there is no better

ally and support than your real self.

When all this newness came upon me, I also revisited Awakening, went through

the 13 steps, and found even greater practical experience in re-connecting me with

my source self and grounding me in that awareness. But I also brought new

awareness to my old book, which is becoming a new book because life is about

discovery and expansion. Yes, there are universal laws and basic life principles, but

they are the building blocks of an expanding universe, and we each have

discoveries and contributions to make. So, I feel I can offer you that same kind of

advance up the spiral of life through the journey offered in this book. Wouldn’t it

wonderful to know that you are wisdom and love and to be ever invited to explore

their ever expanding levels of awareness?

Before we begin the 13 steps, I invite you to answer a few questions, which will give

you a sense of where you are and where the journey the book invites you to go can

take you. The answers can both inspire you to take the journey and also show you

how far you have traveled after you have taken the 13 steps. To afford your

answers greater expansiveness than mere ‘yes’ and no’ answers could provide, give

each answer a value between zero to ten with ten being an absolutely resounding

‘yes.’ Of course, you can only really check your growth at the end of the 13 steps by

being honest here.

1) Are you certain about your greatness?

2) Do you know that, no matter the circumstances you are in, life is designed for your

happiness and that you are entitled to the very best in life?

3) Have you claimed, or do you know how to claim your inheritance of joyful abundance?

4) Are you worry-free and almost always continually happy?

 5) Do you know that you have a valuable contribution to make and that the world is

incomplete without your gift?

6) Are you essentially fearless and rooted in peacefulness?

7) Do you know, and do you see, everything that happens, even the adversities and

challenges of life, as gifts?

8) Are you aware of the extraordinary value of this moment?

9) Do you love your body and are you aware of its preciousness?

10) Are you certain that life can only get better?

If you study and apply the information in the book, you will be able to answer these

questions with nines and tens, or, at least, be moving toward those numbers.

Hopefully, you find that inspiring. However, even if you begin with high scores, the

journey can still have gifts for you.

Your greatness is hidden by the way the world thinks, by the kind of world we live

in, by your birth experience, and by how you were raised. However, once you grasp

even the slightest realization of who you are, the extreme value and opportunity of

this very moment, and the valuable contribution you can make to the world, you

begin to overcome and transcend your limiting conditioning and a magical

adventure calls to you beyond anything you can currently imagine. You have a gift

for everyone and everything in the universe, and when you truly know that in every

fiber of your being, your life will change so radically you will not recognize yourself

from day to day.

There are a great many problems in the world, but these problems are all created

and sustained by a limited understanding of who we are and actually afford us great
opportunities for service and change. The world is a reflection of our collective

consciousness just as our lives are a reflection of our individual consciousness. So,

you initiate change in the world, simply by changing your consciousness and

elevating your awareness.

Living the knowledge of our truth and oneness, and thereby spreading it, is our

highest priority. When enough people understand what the world does not

understand and reflect, the world will change and become what it was originally

intended to be- a place where the abundance of the divine can be, and is, fully

expressed. And you have the opportunity to be that valuable pioneer and

transformer, who can make a profound difference. And the benefits you bring

equally contribute to your own expanding and enjoyable life experience. A

quickening surge of awakening, cooperation, and transformation has already begun

and is rapidly increasing, and what an honor it is to be an essential link of that

transformative power.

Feel loved, for you are greatly loved and appreciated by untold beings of awareness

and energy who contribute to and support you and the new Earth. This service and

effort has been engaged in for eons of time with only a limited effectiveness

because of the density of the Earth vibration and its resistance to change. History

demonstrates that humanity has greatly resisted change even when its spread has

been greatly beneficial. Recall the resistance to Columbus’s discovering America

because it was believed the Earth was flat; consider how Galileo was charged with

heresy and jailed because he dared to say that the Sun, not the Earth, was the

center of our universe, or how challenged and harassed Ignaz Semmelweis was by

the medical community when he proposed a simple cure for childbed fever, or how

maligned the Wright brothers were for saying that man could fly. Innovative ideas
have always been met with resistance and defensive ridicule. And to change

humanity’s understanding of its identity is especially challenging because the ego

fears change and, consequently, so much attachment is invested in the illusory,

fragile identity humanity holds onto.

However, each new person who becomes aware of his or her true identity shifts the

way the world is seen and contributes to the change that needs to happen. And a

book that offers a step by step experiential process that enables its readers to test

its ideas in a relatively brief and realizable amount of time can make a definite

contribution to your enjoyment and that very needed change, especially if its ideas

are well advertised and brought before the public through many different avenues.

So, let me introduce the book’s originating idea by drawing a comparison between

the human predicament and the storyline of the science fiction movie The Man

Who Fell to Earth.3 The hero of the movie comes to Earth to get supplies and

assistance for his family who are on a dying planet. He is distracted, diverted,

addicted, and overwhelmed by his earthly experience, and at the end of the movie,

he is drinking himself into an alcoholic haze of forgetfulness and is very far from

realizing and fulfilling the noble mission with which he came.

Although the hero’s state of affairs is more dire than that of most individuals, there

is a parallel between the movie’s protagonist and every individual in the world in

that they both come with a great potential and a high and noble purpose, but the

many challenges, engagements, and distractions of earthly life tend to lure us away

from, and block us from, remembering and fulfilling our primary and real reason for

being here- to remember who we are and to magnificently express our unlimited

potential.
The evolutionary progression of the Earth has consequently been severely held

back to such a degree that special efforts have been put in operation for humanity’s

awakening and Earth’s progression. Tellis S. Papastavro in The Gnosis and the

Law informs us of little-known, but extraordinarily significant information when he

writes that “ . . . an unexpected event . . . came from Cosmic Law, telling the elite of

the Spiritual Hierarchy, that the time has come for our Universe, along with the rest

of the Solar Systems of our Galaxy, to advance to a higher sphere of Cosmic

Evolution. . .”4 “Among the forty-nine Planets involved, it was the Earth that was

found wanting and unable to take advantage of this opportunity which occurs once

in many millions of years.”5 “. . . a time limit of twenty years was given… for man to

improve himself . . .” 6 “Should [the earth] fail to meet the Cosmic Edict, another

‘impending dissolution’ would be in the offing.”7

Since . . . “the past several millions of years to improve recalcitrant humanity met

with failure,” 8 the brief time period of twenty years was indeed challenging, so a

call went out to the “Cosmos for help.”9 The opening and making available of

hidden knowledge, some of which is shared in this book, is one of many efforts to

awaken collective humanity and its individuals and help her and them to fulfill her

and their destiny in time.10

Therefore, this book has individual, worldly, and cosmic value. The extraordinary,

hidden potential of humanity holds a vast wealth of possibilities. Life is a much

more wonderful and incredible adventure than the average human even glimpses,

let alone realizes, but the time has come for the beginning of the great awakening,

and you have a significant role in that or you would not be reading this book.

Our real, or ultimate purpose- the highest potential of every individual- is to

rediscover and express our original, source greatness in ever greater forms of
expression. I use the word ‘rediscover’ because the process is one of remembering.

We have both an unconditioned self, which has been called our real self, out of

which all life arises and is sustained, and a conditioned self, which we create

through thought, feeling, and action.11

Many people regard the conditioned self as the only, and real self, but only because

they are unaware that there is an invisible, generating consciousness that they are.

Many of us are largely “wandering in a far country”12 of physical existence, and

have forgotten our causational being and our inheritance of magnificence and

abundance that waits upon us to afford us greater ease, power, enjoyment, and

fulfillment, far beyond what we can currently imagine. However, we must, at some

point, when we are able to feel the true call of our heart, remember our wealth and

begin to express in the physical realm the pattern of perfection within us that leads

to life mastery.13

Despite any limiting ideas we might have about ourselves and our possibilities, we

are valuable, magnificent, and wonderful beings- all children of the creative source.

That truth may be deeply hidden, but it is, nevertheless, a certain and wonderful

truth, and the realization of that truth is enormously emotionally and vibrationally

uplifting. Our destiny is great and secure although we have, and can, put off its

realization. It may seem to be an outrageous claim that we have all the gifts and

powers of the originating source, but it is a sublime truth that we all will realize,

however long that may take.

As a start, we have come “with a definite lesson to learn,”14 to discover, express,

and share a unique and magnificent gift within us that will enable us to “. . . fill a

certain place in the grand plan, . . . a place which no other Soul in the universe can

perfectly fill.”15 by making a unique and valuable contribution to life that will
benefit the world and delight us. We are valuable and powerful. Even god and his

angels will not override our free will of expression. 16 But we must first remember,

know, and experience our unconditioned source self to realize and fulfill our

potential.

Awakening offers an experiential process of 13 Steps that encourages and assists

its readers to both remember themselves and fulfill their purpose. Why should you

do that? Because, hands up, it’s the best of all possibilities for yourself, for your

world, and for the universe, and it offers you what your experience will prove that

you really want.

Many perceptive thinkers, who observe the current manifestations in our world, believe this

awakening is critical to the survival of our planet because, as Matthew Fox poignantly

comments, “we are not a sustainable species on our present path of behavior.”17 Peter Russell, in

his enlightening book Waking Up In Time, points out that our tremendous, technological

growth has exceeded our attitudinal, emotional, and spiritual growth to such a degree that we

must either mature and awaken spiritually or self-destruct.18

Therefore, the journey of awakening calls to us from both negative and positive poles. We would

have been in serious trouble as a planet if a critical mass didn’t awaken and help change the

consciousness of the planet, and we’re headed for wonderful transformations and experiences

beyond what we can even imagine now, if, we do. And it appears that on inner levels we have

chosen awakening and that we are in the process of great change.

The great truth of being and law of divine manifestation is expressed in the records of the

wisdom of the great teachers of humanity, such as Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed, who came to
remind us of our true identity, purpose, and destiny, although many religious accounts of their

teachings skew and misrepresent the purity of their ideas, causing much confusion. We need to

be wary of the many additions to, and interpolations of, their ideas, put all statements to the test

of actual experience, and not just be content with belief. There has been much misunderstanding

of what they said, but the cycles of awareness continue to bring us closer to the truth of what

they said and who we are.

A Course In Miracles expresses the idea of our inevitable destiny by calling the course “a

required course,” explaining that our only option and question is, not whether we will we take it,

but when we will take it.”19 It is the same with the ultimate journey. We are on it. Our only

choice is when we will become conscious that we are, however long that may take. You are

offered here the opportunity to investigate and understand your true self and greater destiny, and

explore what it is like to travel upon the journey of all journeys- the ultimate journey.

Wallace Wattles, writing in the 1920’s, powerfully expresses the perennial wisdom of our genius

potential that the journey invites us to explore. “Nothing was ever in any man that is not in you;

no man ever had more spiritual or mental power than you can attain, or did greater things than

you can accomplish. You can become what you want to be.”20

You are a co-creator with the ultimate power and are ever invited to create in that divine pattern.

Again, this knowledge is not new; it is ancient, present even long before the teachings of Christ,

who told us we could do what he did and greater things, and this book is another formulation and

expression of the wisdom teachings of the ages, which brings us a contemporary invitation to

remember ourselves, to claim our wonderful inheritance, and to begin to fulfill our grand destiny

by taking 13 steps on the ultimate journey.

In the grandest sense, everyone is on the journey, even if a person is unaware that he or she is

because everyone is, and has within their body, the reality of the true self they need to know,

explore, and express. An unlimited expression of potential awaits- A life that will dazzle you

with discovery, excitement, and self-fulfillment. You can create the life of your dreams and

significantly contribute to the world. So, let us begin the journey.