Words of Fire and Faith - A View from the Edge (Paperback)

This compilation of essays contains the final handwritten teachings of Lee Lozowick (1943-2010) given during the last 18 months of his life. During that time Lee lived in the crucible of a terminal illness that limited his ability to speak, even while he continued to work & teach extensively, traveling in Europe & the U.S. up until the last 2 days of his life. Lee called these intimate epistles "Words of Fire and Faith." Here the reader enters the teacher's world & encounters a living flame that is simultaneously full of tenderness & compassion for the human predicament. As Lee walked the razor's edge of his last months with dignity, grace & an unflagging commitment to the Path, so are his words imbued with an inner fire that burns away the identification & entrenched attachments of our self-preoccupation. These essays are a testimony of the author's own radical faith rooted in surrender to the Supreme Reality, fully incarnated in a lifetime of devotion to his spiritual master, Yogi Ramsuratkumar. In a natural outpouring, this book contains pith teachings as well as Lee's sense of humor, tenderness, generosity & compassion, which characterized his work since its inception in 1975. As he wrote, Lee was engaged in extreme discipline, which honed his body and being into a state of illuminated clarity; his relentless communication was direct, made from heart to heart. This spiritual intimacy levies fierce challenges even as he simultaneously asserts, "I have faith in you." Following any thread, one may be touched by the vibrant light of a gifted teacher who faced life & death with fire & faith, without backing down or compromise. His writings speak to universal themes: self-honesty, cultivating attention; sanctuary; working with vanity, pride, lust; enlightened culture; recognizing reality as it is, faith, grace, divine ravishment, & relationship with the Beloved. This book will inspire and enliven students of all spiritual paths, particularly those who are confronting their own mortality and seek to practice with a profound degree of refinement, as Lee Lozowick did, up to the moment & transition of bodily death. Lee's constant directive to live fully in the fire of transformation rings true on every page; he tells us, without equivocation, that without a firm foundation, we cannot ride the waves of inexorable circumstance and the inevitable fact of death-the final moment in which we may actualize our full humanity in this lifetime.