Spiritual but Not Religious
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 was the first westerner of my generation to receive these teachings. I practiced and developed them on my own. Now, I passed them on, and it is the task of succeeding generations to develop and adapt them further. I hope you feel up to the task.
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.
This entry was posted
on Monday, June 27th, 2011 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Jungle Dispatch and tagged with anarchist, natural devotion, organized religion.
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I think it is an excellent idea to keep it spiritual without the baggage of a religious society, where one has to think like this,follow these rules and high class or low class etc.
I do beleive that if people want to meet together and form small groups to discuss there practices and to see from diffrent angle how people are doing there practices, that may be good for encouragement and entusiasm.
I use Lalita Prasad Thakur as my model. He sat at home doing his practices in a remote place. He graciously received people and made many disciples who he sent home to live their lives. Wanting to associate with other practitioners is natural and can come together that way–through natural attraction.