Unwarranted Influence: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Military-Industrial Complex by James Ledbetter, editor in charge of Reuters.com. Yale University Press, 2011. I grew up in a Republican family admiring Ike as a military leader and a president. People said “Everybody likes Ike.” After reading this book, now I know why. Raised in a Mennonite family, […]
American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan by Peter Dale Scott This book took my reading from the ancient warfare and politics of the Mahabharata to the current day situation that is affecting all of us regardless of nationality. It provides a thorough history filled with little […]
I want to thank Steven Rosen and others of the Journal of Vaishnava Studies (JVS) for their Spring 2011 issue, which focuses on the Critical Edition of the Mahabharata. It presents articles by seven scholars discussing the impact of the Critical Edition on Mahabharata scholarship. They expose the prejudices of early Orientalists that influence scholarship […]
Monday, August 8, 2011 Review of Steve Bohlert’s Universalist Radha-Krishnaism There are books which are the result of a life-long engagement with a subject. They impress us by the depth of experience and the profundity of thought. Steve Bohlert’s Universalist Radha-Krishnaism is such a book. It is an outcome of the author’s thirty-five year long […]
Daniel Cooper Clark is one of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami’s original New York disciples. We met at the 26 Second Avenue temple in January 1968 when I visited there from my Santa Fe temple. We later worked together closely at Back to Godhead and the New Age Caucus. I sent him a pdf manuscript of my new book […]
This book is sufficiently important that its wide dissemination amongst devotees is a desideratum. . . . old beliefs are given apparently radical new interpretations that widen their scope and potential for meaning. . . . Subal [Steve Bohlert] has done a great service by introducing or naming the Vaishnava concept of deity as panentheism. . . . I favor rÄgÄnugÄ [natural devotion], as it seems does Subal, precisely because it . . . is about reforming the id-controlled ego into a love-permeated ego. . . . There is no doubt that Subal’s is an important brick in the wall of religious discourse . . . His great contribution . . . is that he has gone out on a limb and attempted to make a coherent and systematic presentation of Radha-Krishna according to his vision. This means of course that he has set himself up for criticism, but that kind of courage is what is needed to push the discourse further. — Jagadananda Das/Jan Brzezinski, translator and annotator of Mystic Poetry: Rupa Gosvamin’s Uddhava-sandeÅ›a & HamsadÅ«ta.
With the upcoming publication of my new book, people have been asking how I plan to institutionalize my teachings. Will I start a community, a church, a temple, . . . ? No, I am not going to. Universalist Radha-Krishnaism is an individual path that appeals to people who belong to the growing segment of […]
Universe or Multiverse?, edited by Bernard Carr. Cambridge University Press, 2007. The idea that there may be many universes other than the one we occupy has become a popular scientific speculation. This 517 page anthology “address[es] these issues and describe[s] recent developments . . . represent[ing] the full spectrum of views, from enthusiastic support of […]
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 […]
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, the cosmologist Stephen Hawking said, “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” I have to disagree with Stephen Hawking […]