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 the Amer­i­can pop­u­la­tion (and pre­sum­ably else­where) that says they are spir­i­tual but not reli­gious, as I do. After being a leader in two reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions — ISKCON and the United Church of Christ — I want noth­ing more to do with reli­gion. I cer­tainly do not want to start one.

I feel a need to share the teach­ings I received and devel­oped over a life­time. I do that through my books and other writ­ings. I scat­ter them to the winds like seeds and hope they will find rich soil in the hearts and minds of read­ers. I take an anar­chist approach and believe peo­ple are basi­cally good. The way of nat­ural devo­tion is for peo­ple who pos­sess self-control and are able to live their lives in a healthy bal­anced man­ner as part of global soci­ety along with con­tribut­ing to their local com­mu­nity. Those prac­ti­tion­ers who desire to be part of a reli­gious com­mu­nity can join exist­ing uni­ver­sal­ist reli­gious groups to sup­ple­ment their practice.

Uni­ver­sal­ist Radha-Krishnaism is a loosely affil­i­ated spiritual-philosophical move­ment of indi­vid­ual prac­ti­tion­ers. Espe­cially while we are few in num­ber and widely scat­tered, the inter­net pro­vides a good place to form com­mu­nity for mutual sup­port, encour­age­ment, and shar­ing. I keep in touch with stu­dents who wish con­tact through my web­sites and email along with occa­sional phone calls. Some even come to visit me for more per­sonal teaching.

I have no for­mal dis­ci­ples or autho­rized rep­re­sen­ta­tives, yet as I say in the con­clu­sion to the new book,

I encour­age read­ers to not only fol­low my teach­ings but to make them their own and fur­ther the process. Every­one who sin­cerely accepts my teach­ings and has a good under­stand­ing of them is encour­aged to pass them on to oth­ers. There­fore, there will be diverse expres­sions by dif­fer­ent peo­ple, and their stu­dents will need to assess the valid­ity of these teach­ings for them­selves. In this way, as num­bers increase, loosely affil­i­ated local cell groups may form. Nat­ural devo­tion is not a cookie cut­ter path and will develop accord­ing to indi­vid­ual needs.