My Perspective

To remem­ber Radha Krishna always and never for­get them is the pur­pose of fol­low­ing the rules and reg­u­la­tions of reg­u­la­tive devo­tional prac­tice. Once one attains this real­iza­tion, “the devo­tees reject a rigid, fanat­i­cal adher­ence to the injunc­tions and pro­hi­bi­tions and accord­ing to their indi­vid­ual qual­i­fi­ca­tion give up some of the injunc­tions and begin to prac­tice some items of devo­tional activ­ity that were pro­hi­bi­tions pre­vi­ously.” Sri Chai­tanya Sik­sham­rita, p 49.

I resigned my posi­tion as a renounced leader of ISKCON and dis­ci­ple of A.C. Bhak­tivedanta Swami in Decem­ber, 1974 due to the large scale uneth­i­cal prac­tices that were going on in the name of Krishna con­scious­ness. ISKCON was the sup­port sys­tem that allowed me to live a renounced devo­tional life and preach through­out the world.

I was and I am still a dis­ci­ple of Srila Lalita Prasad Thakur, my sid­dha pranali guru who told me to return to the West and preach. I never gave up my love for Radha Krishna or my basic beliefs. I rein­te­grated into a West­ern lifestyle, elim­i­nated unnec­es­sary or unde­sir­able Indian cul­tural exter­nals and sought alter­na­tive means of preach­ing The Path of Love.

This led me to a three year, sem­i­nary edu­ca­tion with an ecu­meni­cal group of pro­gres­sive Chris­t­ian sem­i­nar­ies in the San Fran­cisco Bay area, The Grad­u­ate The­o­log­i­cal Union. In 1991, I received a Mas­ter of Divin­ity degree and was ordained in the United Church of Christ.

I was the pas­tor of three Mid­west­ern churches from 1991–2002. I found Chris­t­ian beliefs to be com­pat­i­ble with my beliefs: God is love, love God and your neigh­bor, show this by work­ing for peace, jus­tice and the integrity of cre­ation, etc. I taught per­sons to be dis­ci­ples of Jesus and to live as he lived. There­fore, I say, “Real­ize your full poten­tial, live life abun­dantly and love extrav­a­gantly.” as well as, “Love is the answer.” When I described my spir­i­tual life, I said I prac­tice the pres­ence of God. For me that meant Oming and remem­ber­ing Radha Krishna.

In the last three years since I left the church, I revived my devo­tional prac­tices that were so abruptly inter­rupted in 1974 and am con­tin­u­ing from where I left off only in a man­ner that is con­ducive to my life now.

I have also not changed what I believed in the church. My Chris­t­ian beliefs and my Radha Krishna beliefs live in har­mony within me and are both part of the eter­nal reli­gion, The Path of Love. They com­ple­ment one another. Chris­tian­ity is more incar­na­tional and Radha Krishna devo­tion more transcendental.

And so, in my min­istry, I am Steve Bohlert, M.Div. / Subal Das. In churches I can preach and teach from a Chris­t­ian per­spec­tive, and on my own, I can teach devo­tion to Radha Krishna. I am able to min­is­ter to a wide range of per­sons due to my wide range of per­sonal experience.

I feel I am espe­cially well posi­tioned to help other for­mer mem­bers of ISKCON and sim­i­lar orga­ni­za­tions. I know the pain, anger, sense of betrayal, etc. that devo­tees go through when their guru or guru’s orga­ni­za­tion does not live up to what it should be. I’ve lived a long, full life and made peace within myself. I help oth­ers to do the same.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 5th, 2006 at 07:48 and is filed under Steve's Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.