NEW ❦ “How I Learned This Process” (PDF): is a 65 page draft sec­tion from my sec­ond book, Uni­ver­sal­ist Radha-Krishnaism: A Spir­i­tu­al­ity of Nat­ural Devo­tion. It is an except from my auto­bi­og­ra­phy, Full Cir­cle. It por­trays the years 1971–1974 when I became the first West­erner of my gen­er­a­tion to receive ini­ti­a­tion into the process of […]

I just posted a draft sec­tion of my new book, Uni­ver­sal­ist Radha-Krishnaism: A Spir­i­tu­al­ity of Nat­ural Devo­tion, in pdf for­mat. It is avail­able here: http://www.stevebohlert.com/Writings.htm. I’m open to com­ments and sug­ges­tions. Aloha.

For many months now, I’ve been work­ing as an edi­tor and pub­lisher get­ting Uni­ver­sal­ist Radha-Krishnaism ready for release. I’m just wait­ing for Zvon­imir to fin­ish his won­der­ful design work, and it will be out soon.
Mean­while, it feels really good to be work­ing as a writer on my new book titled Expe­ri­enc­ing Radha-Krishna: A Guide for Entering […]

I just started my sec­ond book which will expand upon the final chap­ter of my Uni­ver­sal­ist Radha-Krishnaism book, “Remem­ber­ing Radha-Krishna Through­out the Day.” I gave the philo­soph­i­cal basis and an intro­duc­tion to the praxis of nat­ural devo­tion in Uni­ver­sal­ist Radha-Krishnaism. Now, I will give a detailed expla­na­tion of the prac­tice of involv­ing our­selves in the […]

I used to be quite an ecsta­tic dancer in kir­tan, but now I don’t do that. I think it’s a cul­tural prac­tice that just isn’t part of the cul­ture I live in. Now kir­tan is my wife and I chant­ing sit­ting before our home altar.
Just as the Orissa devo­tees moved from loud kir­tans to more personal, […]

God-dess para­dox­i­cally indi­cates union of the oppo­site ideas of dif­fer­ence and non-difference lead­ing to a higher, fuller unity. This means per­fec­tion, or the abil­ity to encom­pass all extremes of expe­ri­enc­ing reality.

We cul­ti­vate a higher taste like when we enjoy music, lit­er­a­ture, plays, art, and poetry. Free the mind from the dross, and learn to taste the inef­fa­ble beauty and bliss of spir­i­tual life.

Yet, absorbed in each other’s love and lost in each other’s thoughts there is scarcely room in their hearts for thought of any­thing else. God-dess and the devo­tee become mutu­ally sub­servient to each other and sur­ren­der their free­dom to each other. The pure divine love of the devo­tee con­trols God-dess.

Thus, we arrive at a point where the high­est human con­cep­tion of God-dess and the high­est ser­vice one can ren­der them is for them to be a lov­ing young cou­ple, with us as their friends and lovers, totally unaware of their divin­ity. Deep, intense love remains the key element.

Braj is a place of pil­grim­age in Uttar Pradesh, India, but the spir­i­tual Braj exists in the hearts of devo­tees wher­ever they are. Radha-Krishna’s pas­times go on there now and for­ever. One can see them only by the grace and sweet will of Radha-Krishna or their beloveds.