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 rāgānugā [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-sandeśa & Hamsadūta.

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 […]

I’ve been quite busy man­ag­ing var­i­ous stages of con­struct­ing my home, and it’s com­ing together even bet­ter than I imagined–thanks to my wife’s imag­i­na­tion. Our vision of how we want to spend our elder years is man­i­fest­ing, and I feel more opti­mistic, hope­ful, and at home than ever before. At this tra­di­tional time of thanksgiving, […]

As I read reports of rapid high­way infra­struc­ture  devel­op­ment accom­pa­nied by destruc­tion of tra­di­tional sacred spaces in Vrind­a­ban, Braj, India which leads to end­ing the tra­di­tional lifestyles of many res­i­dents, I am sad­dened for those who live there and are trau­ma­tized by all this. I would also be sad­dened if such changes occurred here in […]

I have posted  ❦ “The Daily Med­i­ta­tion” (PDF) on stevebohlert.com. This is a draft of my adap­ta­tion of Radha-Krishna’s pas­times drawn from Krish­nah­nika Kau­mudi and Bha­vanasar San­graha. It is the final chap­ter of my upcom­ing Uni­ver­sal­ist Radha-Krishnaism: A Spir­i­tu­al­ity of Nat­ural Devo­tion. Read it here.

Although sourc­ing from pro­gres­sive Chris­tian­ity its out­look on per­sonal rev­e­la­tion, and from Gaudiya Vaish­nav­ism its enchant­ment with all-attractive God-dess, in its heart and mind Uni­ver­sal­ist Radha-Krishnaism is clos­est to ancient wis­dom of Tao­ism than to either Gaudiya Vaish­nav­ism or Chris­tian­ity, for it refuses to share their pre­dom­i­nantly out­dated worldviews.

I’m read­ing a very inter­est­ing book, From Where You Dream: The Process of Writ­ing Fic­tion, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Robert Olen But­ler. It seems the process of writ­ing lit­er­ary fic­tion is quite sim­i­lar to the process of nat­ural devo­tion in which we enter into a lov­ing rela­tion­ship with Radha-Krishna. They both involve a daily entrance […]

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 […]