Growing up in Scarsdale, New York, a suburb of New York City that was a focus of power and abundance, I saw as a child that these qualities so valued in the West did not bring lasting happiness. Many of my friends were the scions of families who owned multi-national corporations or whose parents were high government officials, advisors to the President. Yet, did not have the key to happiness and suffered the same frustrations and despair as those less materially well off. My own rejection of these values came to a head when one day I visited a wealthy friend of the family dying in a hospital in New York City. Alone and confused, he asked, looking at me with bewilderment, "What is happening to me?"

"You are dying," was all I could say, amazed no had been honest enough to tell him, but even more amazed that death was an eventuality which he had never thought of and for which he was totally unprepared.

"Go to the light," I said, for I had heard that on death one saw a light which could be followed to a place of clarity, even liberation. But, what is that light, and what is liberation? I wondered. Determined to find answers, my spiritual quest began in earnest.

Practicing yoga with Swami Satchitananda in New York City, I had begun to feel energy coursing through my body, and began to realize that I was more than my physical body, but had not yet seen that light about which I had read. Going to Weiser's metaphysical bookstore I encountered the classic spiritual tome, Swami Vivekananda's, Biography of Sri Ramakrishna, known as "The God-Man of India." The story of this fully realized being, along with my own increasing awareness engendered by my practice of yoga, led me to immerse myself in spiritual study. While eating lunch one day in my small flat on New York's lower east side, I heard Baba Ram Das, being interviewed on the radio. He told of his metamorphosis from Harvard psychology professor pioneering the therapeutic use of LSD to devotee of an Indian guru, Neem Karoli Baba, to whom he had gone to learn how to attain expanded awareness without drugs. Little did I realize that a few months later I would be sitting beside Ram Das in India, at this guru's very feet.

Neem Karoli Baba, despite his amazing powers, proved not to be my guru, and after months of wandering through India I returned home to my farm near Woodstock, New York to regain my health and start a commune. The commune never fully came to pass, however, for soon I was visited by an amazing being, Sathya Sai Baba. Stepping out of a photograph someone had sent me, he appeared in the room and raised me into a temporary state of God consciousness, then invited me to return to India to visit him. On these many subsequent visits to India, I came to realize that he was the Avatar of our age, the exemplar of God, who, along with the Ascended Masters, had come to restore dharma, the consciousness of righteousness to our planet. It was he who guided me to meditate on the great I AM, which was to become my path and compass through life, and through which I finally experienced that light for which I sought.

Returning to the States, I no longer desired to remain on Earth. I had experienced all the transitory pleasures life could offer and no longer wanted to remain in a world peopled by those still pursuing those empty values. Although I had experienced transcendent love from Sai Baba, had moments of God consciousness and seen higher worlds of existence, I still had no idea who I was or what I was doing here. Walking through Muir Woods near San Francisco one rainy morning, I pondered, Why not leave this illusory existence as yogis did in India, leave my body behind and take up residence on one of the higher planes of existence?

I prayed for guidance to Sai Baba, Jesus, Buddha, and the Ascended Masters of whom I had recently heard, Show me if there is some reason to remain on Earth, otherwise show me how to leave!

To my great surprise, a being materialized in a physical body in front of me and said, "Peter, your prayer has been heard. I am the part of the Godhead that has been sent to respond to your call."

He offered to fulfill my wish but, as a result of what he showed me, I chose to remain on Earth and become an apprentice in his work of helping liberate humanity from the materialistic delusion that holds it in its glamorous embrace—an apprenticeship for which he sent me to Mount Shasta, which was to become my home.

This book, Adventures of a Western Mystic as Apprentice to the Ascended Masters, is my story of those years. It tells of my introduction to the Ascended Masters, some of whom I was allowed to meet in physical form, my discovery of the reality of my own Christ Self known as the I AM Presence, and my struggles to obtain and obey the guidance which our Higher Self and the Masters are constantly providing.

Due to the many years that have elapsed since their occurrence, some of the experiences described are in a different order than they may actually have occurred. Also, the names have been changed, except for that of my teacher, Pearl; and one of the characters and my many journeys to the east are a composite description, not wanting to take the time to elaborate on all the details of daily life that are extraneous to the purpose of this book. However, I wish to be completely clear that, unless indicated otherwise in the text, these adventures are all real, true events that I experienced in my daily, waking consciousness.

In the course of my training I traveled far and wide, to Europe, Lake Titicaca, Peru; Tibet; India and the Pyramid of Giza, Egypt, some photos of which travels are included here.