Steve’s Musings



Divine Love, the End

Divine love implies two things: the feeling of attachment or affection for the beloved and happiness. However, divine love is not synonymous with happiness as a kind of personal satisfaction. Rather than seeking anything for itself, it longs “to contribute to the happiness…of the beloved, even…at the cost of one’s own happiness. It does not […]


Devotion, the Means

Devotion “cannot, strictly speaking, be defined because it is transcendental.” Sages and scriptures variously described it as: “exclusive and intense loving attachment to” God-dess; “the highest and the most satisfying function of the soul;” “the highest end;” “indescribable love…and the grandest and sublimest of all human experiences”; and “the only means for the attainment of” […]


A Note on the History and Myth of Radha Krishna and Chaitanya

A Note on the History and Myth of Radha Krishna and Chaitanya Due to the late dates of the Bhagavatam and initial mention of Radha by Jayadev in Gita Govinda, I can safely say, the pastimes of Radha Krishna are a lovely myth containing profound universal spiritual truths. They are not historically accurate on the […]


Inconceivable Distinction and Non-distinction

Philosophical thought regarding the relation between God-dess and humans, God-dess “and the world of finite experience, the noumena and the phenomena, is directed along two main lines. Some, emphasizing the essential distinction between the infinite and the finite, accept the absolute transcendence of the one over the other, while others, emphasizing the identity between them […]


The Phenomenal World

The world is a manifestation of the material energy of God-dess and is therefore real. God-dess intrinsically transcends matter, but matter depends upon God-dess for its existence. God-dess, the spiritual abodes and associates exist before creation. At creation the universe is projected out of God-dess in what we now call the big bang. Matter becomes […]


The Finite Self

The different forms described previously are non-differentiated partial manifestations of God-dess. The living entities are God-dess’ differentiated partial manifestations. The living entities are the marginal energy, distinct from the spiritual and material energies but connected with both just as the shore is distinct from land and sea but connected with both. The living entities are […]


God-dess, Radha Krishna

God-dess has infinite forms like parts related to the whole. Since God-dess “has no internal difference, the part is not like a piece of stone chopped off from the whole. The part is…the whole–the same all-knowing and all-pervading being. Still, it is called a part, because the” self energy of God-dess “is not fully manifested […]


The Holographic Universe

I was doing research, preparing to respond to Kapoor’s first paragraph of Chapter VIII, dealing with expansions of God-dess, in terms of a hologram. I wanted to make sure my understanding of the relation between a hologram and its part was correct. I came upon this essay: The Universe as a Hologram, by Michael Talbot […]


The Concept of the Personal Absolute

God-dess has no second. God-dess is the only reality. God-dess’ form is pure self-luminous consciousness. God-dess is the eternal principle, the highest good and the highest bliss. God-dess is an essential unity above categorical difference. There is no other being with the same nature as God-dess. The Absolute is one, but different religions call God-dess […]


Nature of the Absolute

Chaitanya presents a comprehensive concrete monism, dipolar monotheism or panentheism. The personal Absolute enfolds even the formless, attributeless Absolute. God-dess’ inconceivable power to reconcile the irreconcilable reconciles our imperfect and contradictory ideas of qualified and unqualified Absolute in a higher synthesis. The Absolute cannot be completely expressed by words, but this does not mean it […]