After dinner, Jahnava and I drove down to the Kalapana coast and walked across massive lava flows from the 1980s which wiped out one of the greatest beaches in Hawai’i to an incredible new black sand beach with a blazing full moon glistening in a clear starry sky over the water. Incredible elemental vistas stretching out in front of us. It seemed like we were in a giant full surround theatre watching this awesome spectacle right in front of us and yet somehow removed–we on the land and the waves just there. This mighty ocean which this morning threatened to overflow its borders now kindly stayed within its limits. Young woman lithely running in the moonlit shallows. Fountains of lava shooting into the sky on the mountain behind us and flowing down toward the sea. How much more alive, elemental, and primal can it get. Aloha blessings.

While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.” So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the Lord commanded Moses.
– Bible, Numbers 15:32-36

I’ve heard something like the following at least a hundred times in my life:

Just chant Hare Krishna maha mantra purely and be happy!

Or seen people believing in something like this:

The ideal all devotees strive for is exclusive dedication to sri guru. [...] The purity of spiritual advancement depends on the grace of sri guru. Only when he or she is pleased with the disciple can the disciple attain purity, and no one can please their guru by abandoning or relativizing him or her — by not being chaste.
– Harmonist, July 2009

Why is God bound by purity to bestow happiness unto us, little flock on a tiny planet Earth, a mere speckle within the endless universe? Sounds silly and paradoxical.

It very much reminds me of the psychology that propels a market mechanism, especially stock market. People reach deep into their pockets, grab some money to buy investment shares, real estate, government bonds, valuables like jewelry, original art, rarities, and so forth. Utilising money to purchase happiness, comfortable living in this life and utilising purity to bargain for some happiness, God’s mercy or good prospects in future life — what’s the real difference between them? They both illustrate a market approach to get what we need to “feel secure” and to be “saved from the blazing agonies of material existence”.

Bizzare rules of purity

The true trick with every market is that is not ruled by the abundant offer — no matter what that can be — but only by means of acquisition, which in this case becomes purity. In traditional stock markets money rules. Similarly in spiritual markets of this world purity rules. When purity becomes currency, then nothing else matters for currency can “buy you anything”. You live not to spend it, buy things with it and then forget about it, but the market entails: you need to be constantly liquid. Liquidity means being able to easily convert all your assets into currency, or in our case in purity. Gordon Gekko, a ruthless multi-millionaire character played by Michael Douglas in Oliver Stone’s masterpiece movie ‘Wall Street’ would call that “You become a player.” A player in the stock market of purity.

Purity puts a pressure on you. You need purity. Desperately. Purity gets you everything. Therefore you work hard every day to earn purity. However, oftentimes that is not enough to play in demanding market games, so you need more income flowing in. What can help? Selling something, rather than pouring in penances and hard work alone? Or filling up pockets with other valuables appreciated in the stock market of purity? Both are absolutely necessary. As Gordon Gekko further said in the movie, one third of the wealth comes from hard work and two thirds from everything else: mainly from inheritance, interest accumulated, stock and real estate speculation.

Let’s see inheritance. In markets of purity inheritance is something you get by belonging closely to someone who was recognised as a great player and was considered a wizard of purity. Being in the line of some well known market guru, for example. Being born in a family of priests, imams or brahmins is considered to be very propitious. Or being their good friend, or a distant relative. You scratch your back on your ancestor’s life of achievements, the resulting social status and use it as a winning bid to get more currency and investment options. Your true achievements don’t really matter because inheritance puts you instantly forward. Suddenly your voice matters and you’re in the game.

Interest accumulated is everything you gain on assets properly invested into purity market options. Spiritual markets of purity claim God, as a supreme treasurer and a bean counter, carefully calculates all your deposits and adds on a proper interest that you can withdraw at a certain time, or use to reinvest. The choice is yours, but obviously market indeed wants players to accumulate as much currency as possible because that’s the true goal. Liquidity. So you’ll probably tighten up your waist belt and reinvest.

However, even all that is not enough, as market has tremendously high expectations from its players. Often you ask yourself does this frantic game makes any sense, but you have little time to reconsider and change your life, as you’re firmly bound to market rules by different sets of fears for your very existence. Can you find courage to challenge them? But you don’t have enough time even to earn enough to stay in the game. Now when you’ve reaffirmed yourself this is the only way to go, you’ll shout out one more loud banzai and continue.

What major promise keeps you in the game? An oracle that says you should never forget that one percent of all players possess half the spiritual wealth available in those markets, and only one percent of those one percent will even attain God’s mercy. You really want to be one of them. You indeed need to venture into stock and real estate speculation.

What is that? It is following: you need carefully observe the bids on the market and try to predict where’s best to invest. Is there someone or something really popular at the moment in spiritual markets of purity you should come close to? Invest in his or her shares? You need to monitor everything carefully, for you never know who’s gonna appear next, with a more comprehensive portfolio, inheritance capital and thus more promising future for investment. Be careful, for investing into stocks of ‘wrong saints’, ‘out-of-ordinary gurus’ or some suspicious religious thoughts may cause banishment from the circle of your friends and mentors. You surely don’t want that.

You should also re-evaluate your assets regularly. Do they yield enough purity? Should you get rid of something? Perhaps that which is not pure enough, that doesn’t earn a high interest rates in purity markets at the moment. That can be some real estate of your life, say, relationships with others which the culture of purity markets call ‘impure and non-winning bid’ relationships? Say, abandoning school, family, young children, wife or a husband, friends? Or it can be your own industry, talents, hobbies, ideas and fruits of your knowledge and thought that is considered impure and not worthy of God’s mercy?

Greed for purity is mighty. Those who give up just everything impure in people eyes are considered sheiks in the purity stock markets. They are “top players”. We also call them renunciates. But however you call them, everyone looks at them attentively, watching how they bid in order to learn few tricks ‘from the best’. That’s why they, like Gordon Gekko, have thousands of poor Bud Foxes who want desperately to become like them and will do anything.

“Save us master, we are fallen. We want to become as pure as you are,” they pray in exhaustion. A whole new paradigm of spirituality arises, which rules this world by mockery and fear, and drives it downhill.

Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin”?
– Bible, Proverbs 20:9

In his book ‘Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time; The Historical Jesus & The Hearth of Contemporary Faith’, postmodern Christian thinker and theologian Marcus Borg reflects on matters of purity which are old as eons. He writes:

“The famous words of Paul also negate the world of purity and cultural boundaries and express the same inclusiveness: In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female. Paul is not here announcing an abstract ideal; rather this verse reflects the new social reality of the [Christian] movement itself. In short, there is something boundary shattering about the imitatio dei that stood as the center of Jesus’ message and activity: Be compassionate as God is compassionate. Whereas purity divides and excludes, compassion unites and includes. For Jesus, compassion had a radical sociopolicital meaning. In his teaching and table fellowship, and in the shape of his movement, the purity system was subverted and an alternative social vision affirmed. The politics of purity was replaced by a politics of compassion”.

And it came about when He went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread, that they were watching Him closely. And there, in front of Him was a certain man suffering from dropsy. And Jesus answered and spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” But they kept silent. And He took hold of him, and healed him, and sent him away. And He said to them, “Which one of you shall have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day ?”
– Bible, Luke 14:1-5

Compassion vs purity

Compare this act of Jesus with an act of Moses and Aaron, who sentenced a poor man to death for breaking purity laws on a Sabbath day, mentioned at the very beginning of this essay? They stand opposite, startlingly different. One is an act of compassion and causeless love despite laws, yet other a cold-hearted exercise of purity laws that seldom make any sense at all. Can a sane person today really believe that God indeed demanded a poor man collecting wood (and thus breaking some obscure social rule of purity) to be stoned to death? What a poor man should do to please God through Moses and Aaron? His purity market stock options were obviously low, and he was not a friend or a relative of anyone ‘important’. Then he was a good scape goat to show people, to scare them profoundly, what will happen if they don’t obey laws of purity. However, I wonder has God thundered his command for the execution of a man from the sky above, so everyone could hear it, or it was Moses who claimed he was the one who heard it?

Can a thoughtful person really believe we need purity to get few drops of happiness, or a step in ’spiritual advancement’? We find infinitely more mercy in scouts organisations, or just one hospital by practicing doctors and nurses who save endless lives than in hundreds of asylums of Moses-like gurus and teaches who ‘hear God’s voice’ and whose mercy ‘thou hast to yet deserve’. What is so ‘advanced’ and ‘worthy’ in the climate of purity, which is always ruled by fear? What a horrifying God demands all that? Do we really want rules that create such a sadistic, hopeless, heartless world with its roots in bigotry?

With a following paragraph I want to conclude: everything we do is better to do with love, no matter how small, or how insignificant we think it is. We cannot measure love. Loving attitude is better than purity of any kind, no matter how big the latter one is. Love is a higher principle than purity. Purity is a serious impediment and becomes a goal in itself, which is a sad truth in all spiritual practices today and of antiquity. Purity is disgrace that denies our humanity, denies life, denies compassion. It always needs some ‘impurity’ to justify its sorrowful life, and thus it lives to find blemishes and spots in everything and everyone. It rules by fear, stops people to think and to feel outside its boundaries. It has nothing to do with spiritual, or life affirming. Quite the opposite — it’s life denying.

But if I said it just like that, without any elaboration, who’d believe me a word?

– Zvonimir Tosic

“Steve’s Musings” from 2003 to 2009 are archived here. They trace my development over the years leading to the writing of Universalist Radha-Krishnaism. I hope you will appreciate its new home here and the changes that will be happening to the the rest of the site.

My active blog is now “Jungle Dispatch” which is also found on this site. Look there for the latest writings and information. Aloha.

“Whereas mainstream Hinduism tends toward puritanism and life-negating asceticism, the culture of the Vedic tribes of circa 1500 to 1000 B.C. was clearly life-affirmative and sex-positive. They loved music, dance, and gambling, were not at all averse to inebriation, and prayed for a hundred years life on Earth, many children, and plenty of cattle. As one Vedic hymn exhorts, “O men! Lift, lift up the penis, the bestower of satisfaction! Move it, dig deep for the acquisition of wealth [in the form of progeny]!” While some of the prayers have a symbolic content, many others are to be taken quite literally.

“The Tantric adepts have always claimed that their new teachings were really only a restatement of the old Vedic religion. This claim has never sat too well with the brahmins, the custodians of the Vedic heritage. It is true, however, that an examination of the ancient Vedas yields Tantra-like elements. In fact, the Vedas contain a rather elaborate sexual symbolism. (138)”

In the same way, Universalist Radha-Krishnaism mines the riches of the perennial wisdom from the past and presents them in a contemporary manner to create a life-affirming, sex-positive spiritual path for today. Sometimes the past holds the keys to the future. Just because certain views seem to have been around forever and dominate today’s thinking does not mean they are best, right, or useful. My primary approach to Universalist Radha-Krishnaism is to remove the detritus accumulated over the centuries and explain what remains in contemporary language to present a more workable, sustainable model for spiritual growth now and in the future.

The recently announced iPad from Apple Inc. is an invention that causes tectonic shifts in the world of computing experience. “Last time there was this much excitement about a tablet, it had some commandments written on it,” says The Wall Street Journal columnist. Although many may chuckle upon this, same as Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple did, we cannot deny that in people’s minds inventions like this one collide their own worldviews with a new knowledge, wraps them in the complacency of cognitive dissonance.

Humanising computers

At one level in their mind people know a new experience will change perception of ‘computers’ and what ‘computers’ are. Computers are inseparable part of our work and leisure today, our lives. They’re everywhere. Therefore a new concept will change our lives together with ‘the computing experience’.

First whinging reactions around the globe are mostly caused by denial. How come? Let’s put it in a scientific way: an entirely new idea has entered the universal hologram and people, as parts of the hologram, are aware of it on some level. But they are denying it. It’s a self-defending mechanism: humans will have to redefine the entire approach, and change the dictionary meaning of the words such as ‘computer’, ‘browsing’, ‘emailing’, ‘desktop’, etc. It’s too big a step for many, considering that we have spent decades getting accustomed to the computers already around us and that haven’t changed significantly during the last 30 years.

Unexpected new hologram program will severely hit the memory cores of so called IT specialists and IT columnists, who will need to redefine their expertise. Imagine this: if everything about 90% of the computing experience becomes so easy to do (and 90% of our computer time is dedicated to everyday stuff), painless and entirely humanised as showcased with an iPad (and even bettered by its successors), what will they have to do, and talk about? Their (self)importance ceases.

In his blog Fraser Speirs, technology writer, notes:

What you’re seeing in the industry’s reaction to the iPad is nothing less than future shock. For years we’ve all held to the belief that computing had to be made simpler for the ‘average person’. I find it difficult to come to any conclusion other than that we have totally failed in this effort.
Secretly, I suspect, we technologists quite liked the idea that Normals would be dependent on us for our technological shamanism. Those incantations that only we can perform to heal their computers, those oracular proclamations that we make over the future and the blessings we bestow on purchasing choices.

This experience follows the story of Ford’s inventions. When they asked Henry Ford does he value people’s opinions on what is next, he answered that he doesn’t care about what many think about inventions. He added, “If I asked people what would they really need, they’d all answer they needed a faster horse.” It’s almost exactly what many commented about the iPad. With the newly introduced iPad, many columnists and field experts expected a better, flatter laptop, a better phone, a better .. computer they’re already familiar with. They grudge: “Where’s the USB 3 port?, and an SD card slot?, what about a super-fast processor?, where is the full-blown OS X operating system and the whole of its several decades of sacred UNIX core legacy? We need that!”

They just wanted a faster horse, and were ready for it, but they didn’t expect a radical shift in thinking and imagining computer experience. In fact, Apple has completely redesigned everything! Redesigned iPad’s software from inside out, its user interface (adding a giant multi-touch screen that flips as you want it), variety of software keyboards that pop up according to need instead of ‘one-size-fits-all’ hardware keyboard everyone must use. The result is that the whole experience becomes less cumbersome and more natural. Apple’s iPad chief designer Jonathan Ive says that although no one has used it before the announcement, millions of people will be instantly familiar with it — they will instinctively know what to do. It is an invention with its basis in the heart of the problem — computers can do more and can be more, but no one has done it yet.

Vox populi and polls say nothing about the power of a true invention, because by definition no one is ready for it. All statistics deny even the existence of an invention so do any of ‘expert opinions’ or customer survey results about “are you gonna switch to an iPad when it comes out?” matter?

Not at all. iPad is a story all about humanising the computer experience, by imagining and then producing a groundbreaking device that blends seamlessly into our everyday life. It is an extension of a human mind for a human mind. From the stiff keyboard and hard to remember commands through CLI (Command Line Interface) as a main user interface in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, to the mouse and graphical user interface in the late 1980’s and 20+ years later, to a human finger in the second decade of the 21st century and a multi-touch pad, the path is now clear: the idea for those brave ones is to make computers different, less intimidating and more humanised.

They suddenly become something else, not just compute things. Rather enjoy things. A computer decomputerised.

Humanising religion

Now a reader may ask: What all this has to do with us here? However, comparisons like this one have a tremendous eye-opening power. In the very much same sense, Universalist Radha-Krishnaism follows the example of the iPad, but in the field of religious, philosophical and spiritual thought.

Let me illustrate. What our every day with a computer consists of? What is the real work we need to do? The real work is not formatting the margins of a document, installing the printer driver, uploading the document, finding lost fonts, figuring out how to insert a character from a foreign language using English-only limited keyboard, finishing the PowerPoint slides, running the software update, reinstalling the operating system, fighting computer bugs and viruses.

The real work is teaching the child, healing the patient, minding the house, logging the road defects, fixing the vehicle at the roadside, capturing the table’s order, designing the house, reducing waste and greenhouse emissions, organising the party. Think of the millions of hours spent, the lengths that millions of people have gone to in order to acquire skills that are orthogonal to their core interests and their job, just so they can get their job done and just work on computers. How frustrating! But that was considered normal.

Universalist Radha-Krishnaism rewrites how religion and spirituality should be taught, practiced and understood, and brings forth a real world inspiring solution for all those who want the real job done: love for each other, the world, the God-dess, not some cumbersome practices, penances and regulations rooted in archaic world views that have nothing to do with today. Universalist Radha-Krishnaism is an operating system of a spiritual experience completely rewritten — from the ground up — to be joyous and haunting journey to all who venture. Its elegance is not rooted in a philosophy that adds more to layers upon layers of old and fruitless ideas, but rather in getting rid of everything that obstructs the humanising experience of spirituality.

Yes, don’t worry: it is perfectly all right if we walk the spiritual path and not dragging a ton of rules, superstitions, obsolete beliefs and senseless rituals chained to our legs and burdened on our backs. It’s perfectly okay to walk freely and that’s the whole point of walking: to enjoy the scenery and always learn something new and exciting. Spirituality needs to be a human experience, not a frantic race under battle helmets where we lose our sense of humanity and purpose.

It is perfectly fine not to depend on shamans, priests and gurus whose whole purpose of life is “make sure” you get your “dosage” of mercy upon your “poor sinful soul”, exclusively deserved by their “hard work” and prayers they utter “in your name” before “the Almighty”. Universalist Radha-Krishnaism gives you a different reality, a reality in which all-present and beautiful God-dess Radha-Krishna is already here for you, extending you arms and refreshing thoughts that release, overjoy and fulfill. No hard labour required. No penances. No chains rattling behind you. No imposed guilt and fear. No useless chants no one understands. No outdated beliefs. No superstitions. No complicated rituals. No irrational babble no one can prove. No one else’s mercy required. Just be free, be human and love from the depth of your heart because you already know how to do it — it’s in your spiritual DNA. Simply fulfill your loving goal on this lovely planet Earth and spend no extra minute on irrelevant mumbo jumbo.

Universalist Radha-Krishnaism is nothing you can imagine by comparing it to established religious thoughts of old. This is not yet another horse, or even a faster one — something predictable. It’s a whole new category of experience, a wholly unprecedented one.

If the iPad and its successor devices free everyday people to focus on what they do best, it will dramatically change people’s perceptions of computing from something to fear to something to engage enthusiastically with. We aim the same for the Universalist Radha-Krishnaism in the field of spirituality and modern thinking.

Universalist Radha-Krishnaism — a spirituality humanised.

– Zvonimir Tosic

Common Threads is a program heard weekly on Grand Rapids, Michigan NPR affiliate, WGVU-FM. It is hosted by Interfaith Dialogue Association President, Fred Stella. Steve Bohlert, author of Universalist Radha-Krishnaism will be the guest speaker Sundays February 7th and 14th, 2010.

In this world of sound bite journalism and confrontational hit and run radio, Common Threads is a welcome relief.  Guests come from virtually every point on the spectrum of spirituality & religion. In the past dozen years we’ve had Tibetan Buddhist lamas, Catholic priests, Hindu monks, Jewish Kabbalah teachers, Evangelical pastors and many, many more share the microphone.

The format is quite simple. In the tradition of such NPR programs as Fresh Air or Speaking of Faith, we invite guests to share informal conversation with our host, Fred Stella. There is almost no editing in this process.

Every week WGVU runs each episode 2 times.  Common Threads can be heard on Sundays at both 7 AM & 6:30 PM (Eastern).  Steve Bohlert will be the guest speaker on Sundays February 7th and 14th, 2010. WGVU covers most of the West Michigan area. Its frequency is 88.5 FM. You can also listen live on the web or download podcasts of previous shows by logging on to http://www.wgvu.org. On the top panel, click on “Radio/News.” Once there, see “Common Threads” in left column, “Now Streaming 88.5″ in right column. If you want to listen while the show is airing click in the right column. If you want to listen after the show has aired click the left side. That will take you to the archives.

About the host: Fred Stella has been involved with Interfaith Dialogue Association for over 15 years, and has held the office of president for 12 years. He has lectured internationally on inter-religious matters.  Mr. Stella brings over 3 decades of broadcast experience to Common Threads.

In the Chaitanya Charitamrita (2.8.226-27 & s 52) Prabhu replies to Ramanand, “The mahabhagavata looks at animate and inanimate objects, and everywhere is the glowing of Sri Krishna. They look at animate and inanimate objects, but do not see those images; rather everywhere they see the blossoming of their own ista-deva. ‘He who sees his own god in all things of the earth, and sees all things as in his own Bhagavan, he is the greatest of bhagavatas (BP 11.1.45).’”

This profound statement comes right before Chaitanya reveals his true form as Radha-Krishna in one body, which Tony Stewart calls, “theologically, the climax of the book.”

Chaitanya, quoting the Bhagavat Puran, clearly offers a panentheistic view as the perspective of the great devotees of God-dess. This is clearly an incarnate theology that eliminates the duality of nature and spirit. It is later manifested by Ramanand in his service of two temple dancing girls as an enactment of his service to Radha.

Therefore, Universalist Radha-Krishnaism embraces life, nature, body, sex, and all the good things God-dess offers us seeing him-her glowing lovingly through them all. We live life fully on many different levels following God-dess’ lead. Enjoy freely.