I just read A Renegade History of the United States by Thaddeus Russell. It provides a view of America from the perspective of the “bad” people — slaves, prostitutes, Jews, Italians, jazz musicians, beats, gays, hippies and the like. They all made great contributions to our freedom and happiness. I must admit to a lifelong attraction to such people who knew how to enjoy life despite the “good” people who tried stopping them by enforcing conformity. This attraction made me one of them just as attraction makes devotees one of the Braj residents.

As an outsider who became an insider but rejected it, I provide a unique insight into the practice of Radha-Krishna devotion and bring it into the twenty-first century. Based on my non-dualistic life affirming philosophy, I reveal the esoteric amorous pastimes of Radha-Krishna and how to enter them while being active in this world. Universalist Radha-Krishnaism practitioners fully enjoy this life as well as the next.

I asked my friend Zvonimir Tosic to paint a picture for the cover that captures the essence of the new book. He gave me this watercolor based on the style and works of Marc Chagall, one of the great modernist painters of the twentieth century. It shows an idealized young couple in harmony with nature and society — the Divine Couple, Radha-Krishna. He freed them from the constraints of traditional Hindu iconography and allowed them to become more universal without concretizing them in a new way. Much is left open to the imagination just as it is in the practice of natural devotion.