Essays

From the point of view of us not being God the world may appear to be mainly a place of suffering and ignorance. After all, it is a place of birth, death, old age, and disease. And we don’t really know with certainty who we are, or the limits of our power, or the connection […]

For a westerner embracing the dharmic tradition, the concept of nitya-baddha (sanskrit) – often translated as ever-conditioned or eternally conditioned soul – is routinely confused with the idea of fallen soul prominent in Abrahamic religions. A fallen soul, in simple terms, being one who has rebelled against God, and has thus been cast out of […]

I joined the Hare Krishna movement (ISKCON) in the early 1980s, shortly after the passing of founder A.C. Bhaktivedanta swami (aka Srila Prabhupada), and lived through the turmoil of several fallen ‘successor’ gurus. I therefore feel entitled to opinion on the subject matter of Guru misconception. At the same time, please note that all that […]

If one believes God exists, and God is perfect/all-powerful, one might reason that everything that comes from God must also be perfect. Us and this world included. If that is the case, how then are our lives and this world, along with all of its apparent horrors*, perfect? To my mind, if everything comes from […]

Premise: God exists. God is perfect and complete. Everything that emanates from God is likewise perfect and complete. Us and this world included. Seeming imperfect/flaw points to misunderstanding of purpose. How are we and this world perfect? Possible Purpose: We are all looking at God We are all experiencing God We are all attracted to […]

If I’m pursuing a spiritual path, a reasonable question is why? What is my motive? What are my motives? For example, am I motivated primarily by fear or love, or by something else? Perhaps I’m in a state of transition between fear and love, and if so, is that a comfortable experience? Although I believe […]

In my opinion this most important of topics must not be hijacked by religious dogma or women’s rights issues. Views on all sides of such things are passionate, fiercely defended, and for me, paradoxically, they simply cloud and distract. Instead I suggest invested parties step back … way back … and review their personal convictions […]

That God is benevolent and completely in control, yet at the same time bad things happen in this world is a problem for logical and rational thinkers. I think. If we embrace any idea that artificially distances God from something he/she is absolutely in control of, i.e. to explain the suffering of this world without […]

1. God chooses to taste and explore rasa. Our life adventures, dark or light/conscious or unconscious regardless, contribute, albeit in a small way, to the completeness of that exploration. How? Our personal experiences of emotion/feeling, by dint of our enternal jiva individuality, together with our current lifetime tailored conditioning, have a uniqueness about them, and […]

When I say I don’t believe in Karma, it’s not that I don’t believe in karma per se, but I don’t believe in karma as reaction to thought and/or deed that one is obliged to accept. I find that sort of understanding fundamentally incompatible with the divinity of the soul in that this idea of […]