Unified vision

When people go beyond sectarian understandings and take the best of each tradition, they cannot but benefit. The world is so divided, and yet, everyone is so close. So much violence has at least some religious overtones, and religion often seems to divide more than unite. Humanity cannot afford to live like this any longer. People need to see the unifying essentials of all faiths, realize God-dess is one, and we are all one family of God-dess.

Why God-dess?

We use the term God-dess as a universal expression that recognizes the ground of being is both masculine and feminine–the Divine Couple, Radha-Krishna. God-dess is not limited to previous understandings of Radha-Krishna or the patriarchal image God invokes. God-dess, a less familiar term than God, frees people to imagine new images of the divine.

Paragraph

Universal view of God-dess

Universalist Radha-Krishnaism speaks of God in a manner philosophically and religiously opposed to the term’s general understanding. God-dess does not mean the cosmic moralist who gives a long list of unchanging, absolute laws, codes, rules, and regulations people must follow under threat of punishment either in this life or the next. Rather, God-dess wants people to enjoy life fully in relationship with him-her, others, and all creation. God-dess gives abundant grace to all.
Rather than an unchangeable, passionless absolute who remains aloof from and unaffected by the world, God-dess intimately relates to the world, enjoying and responding to and through all beings. God-dess dynamically experiences and adapts to creation. God-dess remains ever-fresh like youth or spring.
God-dess does not function as the controlling power who micromanages the world, deciding who lives and who dies, or other myriad details of life. God-dess set the processes of creation in motion. Those processes work according to natural laws, and God-dess does not suspend them to perform miracles. Acting within natural laws, God-dess uses persuasion rather than coercion to carry out his-her will. For example, Krishna taught Arjun the Bhagavad Gita to encourage him to do his duty as an act of devotion.
God-dess does not sanction the status quo or will it to be so. Leaders cannot claim divine right of rule. The status quo is a result of human free will. A grand evolutionary process develops higher states of consciousness to more fully enjoy experience, and it uses the status quo temporarily to advance this end. However, the status quo must give way to new ways of harmonious conscious being to fulfill its natural function. Everything is in process and should not be concretized.
God-dess exists as male and female counterparts, Radha-Krishna, the Divine Couple, engaged in an eternal love affair with each other and all beings. Many devotees see the sixteenth century Bengali saint and mystic, Krishna Chaitanya, even in his own lifetime, as an incarnation of Radha-Krishna in one body manifesting the archetype of spiritual androgyny. Chaitanya lived five hundred years ago. His contemporaries were Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Nicolaus Copernicus, and others who witnessed and ignited the Renaissance and rebirth of humanism in the western world. However, it was a much different time and culture in India than most westerners can grasp.

Devotees experience the interrelatedness of all things as finite emanations of God-dess. They relate to creation as part of God-dess and care for it as they care for themselves. People depend on it, and it depends on them. Creation lives, and God-dess constitutes its soul. Expressed in the language of contemporary science, God-dess expanded through the big bang to become all things. The one became many, but remains one.

Past, present, and future

The past is past and cannot be repeated. The future remains open. The present happens now. The past influences present and future. Many options exist for possible future realities since people experience some freedom in choosing their future as well as how they view the past and allow it to influence them. Each instant offers a new and unrepeatable eternal now. Therefore, devotees experience eternal life related to God-dess now.

Present experience includes a select portion of the past. Individual and collective experiences led us to this particular present. In the same way, the present becomes past and leads to a new future. People influence the future by how they live in the present, the consciousness they develop, and most importantly, the loving relationship they develop with Radha-Krishna. Devotees envision their desired future and enlist the aid of God-dess to get them there by living in the presence of God-dess constantly.

Universalist Radha-Krishnaism provides inspiring solutions to contemporary individual and collective problems. It recognizes the urgency of the situation and the radical shifts that will occur in coming decades, one way or another. The future of humanity and the planet depend on the choices people make: are they life affirming or life denying?

God-dess supports full, abundant life. Yet, the forces of death remain strong. People need to choose where they stand and act accordingly. No safe middle ground exists. Not choosing is a choice. Not to act is to act. Devotees carry responsibility for their parts, but God-dess acts through them.

Spread the love