To Radha on Her Appearance Day
Having been disillusioned by fundamentalist Christianity as a teenager, I became a beat and then a hippy seeker. This led me to A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. I was living in a commune in Haight Ashbury on Ashbury Street with a young woman. As soon as I saw Swamiji, I intuitively knew he was my guru. My […]
Having been disillusioned by fundamentalist Christianity as a teenager, I became a beat and then a hippy seeker. This led me to A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. I was living in a commune in Haight Ashbury on Ashbury Street with a young woman. As soon as I saw Swamiji, I intuitively knew he was my guru. My […]
I was doing some web research today and came across this book excerpt by eminent Chaitanya Vaishnav scholar, Joseph T. O’Connell. He concisely and insightfully describes how Chaitanya’s devotional teachings and practices became institutionalized in a soft, symbolic, decentralized manner as opposed to the hard, centralized, coercive institutions later formed by Gaudiya Math and ISKCON. […]
The blissful energy enables God-dess to enjoy bliss and infuses bliss into the hearts of loving devotees. The essence of the blissful energy is divine love. The fullest manifestation of divine love is Radha, the eternal consort or counter-whole of Krishna, the personal absolute. Just as Krishna possesses infinite divine energies in their highest perfection, […]
The blissful energy enables God-dess to enjoy bliss and infuses bliss into the hearts of loving devotees. The essence of the blissful energy is divine love. The fullest manifestation of divine love is Radha, the eternal consort or counter-whole of Krishna, the personal absolute. Just as Krishna possesses infinite divine energies in their highest perfection, […]
Vedic metaphor suggests something like this: suppose an expansion of God-dess sleeps and dreams this world. God-dess’ dream creates a “reality†that goes on for billions of human years, measures billions of light years across, and seems so solid and captivating that some believe it is all that exists. Yet it is a dream, an […]
Cosmic Consciousness is higher than Undifferentiated Oneness in the hierarchy of manifestations as we understand the absolute, personal God-dess. Undifferentiated Oneness constitutes the basic reality underlying all concrete formations. Cosmic Consciousness cognizes, controls, and regulates the concrete formations. From our perspective, Cosmic Consciousness implies a differentiated, qualified state of God-dess. Cosmic Consciousness is qualified in […]
God-dess, the highest being, perfectly manifests all auspicious qualities. Undifferentiated Oneness exists as the incomplete manifestation of God-dess, in which the divine attributes and potencies lie dormant. Dr. Kapoor explains: It is primordial sameness, but not a barren stillness; it is indeterminateness, but not an indeterminateness that totally denies distinctions and definiteness; it has distinctions, […]
God-dess’ body and its owner are not two different principles like the difference between the body and soul of living entities in the physical world. God-dess’ body and its owner both consist of consciousness and bliss. The same eternal spiritual principle manifests God-dess’ names, attributes, activities, and abodes. God-dess is not different internally or externally. […]