Relational. Confrontational. Addressing closet issues in the open. Empathetic. Realistic. Inspirational.

As we are about to the round the corner into the 2nd season of THE FREE RADICAL PODCAST, peak in on some the conversations Swami Padmanabha and guests shared during Season 1.

FULL VERSIONS can be found The Free Radical Podcast :

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• To write your review of “Radical Personalism” on Amazon, visit here.

▶ CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION: Gaudiya Reform Forum on Facebook.

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▶ WEBSITE: https://Tadatmya.org
▶ EMAIL: connection@tadatmya.org
▶ FACEBOOK: tadatmya.sangha
▶ YOUTUBE: tadatmya-sangha

Join Swami Padmanabha and Namarasa as they discuss what lies at the heart of community, togetherness that can be formed through Radical Fraternity, and the various shapes that may take at different times. Concerns such as conformity and fitting in, the roles of community leaders, mediocracy, deep friendships, keeping intimacy in large communities are also discussed.

@namarasapodcast

Watch, and join in, this conversation on YouTube

▶ WATCH ON FACEBOOK

▶ WATCH ON YOUTUBE

▶ PURCHASE “RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion” in hardcover, paperback, and/or Kindle formats on Amazon

• To write your review of “Radical Personalism” on Amazon, visit here.

▶ CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION: Gaudiya Reform Forum on Facebook.

▶ FOR MORE INFO: SwamiPadmanabha.com

Join Swami Padmanabha and Krishna Chandra, an author and initiator of Anada dham—a contemplative ashram in Switzerland where silence has become a crucial course of their daily practice—in the lively and liberating discussion of the relation of freedom and love in the life of bhakti: what is the harmonizing element that feeds and supports both the deepest surrender and the limitless embrace of freedom.

Drawing direction from the nature of God and his relationship in love, as well as deep thinkers, philosophers and activists in recent history, the conversation weaves a rich tapestry of conversation, generating many thought-provoking inroads of contemplation and expansion of concepts that have grown small and confining over time, accepted (or rejected) simply out of custom. Several words (and, therefore, views of our world, and, therefore, our actions) are reclaimed for the service of bhakti: provocation, confrontation, responsibility, non-conformity, rebellion, freedom, adventure, and more

Watch, and join in, this conversation on YouTube

▶ WATCH ON FACEBOOK

▶ WATCH ON YOUTUBE

▶ PURCHASE “RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion” in hardcover, paperback, and/or Kindle formats on Amazon

• To write your review of “Radical Personalism” on Amazon, visit here.

▶ CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION: Gaudiya Reform Forum on Facebook.

▶ FOR MORE INFO: SwamiPadmanabha.com

Join Swami Padmanabha and Bhima-Karma as they bring to the table topics of abuse shrouded by narratives of denial and various forms of evasiveness, healing from trauma and the positive choice of redemption, and the importance of embodied direct experience.

Before a problem can be solved, it must be acknowledged and explored deeply through the sharing of experience, each from their own place. Only after exhaustive exploration will the solution be self-evident, and therefore, comprehensive.

“What kind of kirtan can we have if we can’t have a conversation? Without that, kirtan becomes an evasive device.”

Bhima-Karma’s concluding thoughts: “Be situated in direct experience.”

Watch, and join in, this conversation on YouTube

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▶ PURCHASE RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion in hardcover, paperback, and/or Kindle formats on Amazon

▶ WRITE your REVIEW of RADICAL PERSONALISM

▶ CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION: Gaudiya Reform Forum on Facebook.

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Join Swami Padmanabha and Brian McClaren as they explore insights from their own traditions and experiences as to how to keep religious traditions alive and the joyful relief that arises from honestly acknowledging how we no longer represent the heart of the tradition and responsibly address, individually and communally, how to correct the course.

https://brianmclaren.net/

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▶ PURCHASE RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion in hardcover, paperback, and/or Kindle formats on Amazon

▶ WRITE your REVIEW of RADICAL PERSONALISM

▶ CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION: Gaudiya Reform Forum on Facebook.

▶ FOR MORE INFO: SwamiPadmanabha.com

Join Swami Padmanabha and Father Adam Bucko, a contemplative author, Episcopal priest, founder of the Reciprocity Foundation and The Center for Spiritual Imagination, and committed voice in the movement for renewal of Christian Contemplative Spirituality and the growing New Monastic movement, come together to share their experiences of Radical Activism.

Quote From Radical Personalism that opens the discussion:
“In connection to the above point, social action and involvement should be encouraged in the Gaudiya community for those so inclined, and they should be properly educated by the elders as to how to engage in compassionate social action. We call this Radical Activism…’A spirituality that is only private and self-absorbed, one devoid of an authentic political and social consciousness, does little to halt the suicidal juggernaut of history. On the other hand, an activism that is not purified by profound spiritual and psychological self-awareness and rooted in divine truth, wisdom, and compassion, will only perpetuate the problem it is trying to solve, however righteous its intentions.’* Properly executed and complemented, every action can become prayer and every prayer can become action that influences the world in ways beyond our imagination.”
* (Andrew Harvey)

• Adam shares what Radical Personalism is to him: that each and every one of us should respond to the cry of the world - whether that is people struggling with housing insecurities or people who are being oppressed—that we need to respond in a personal way and not wait for institutions. It also points to the Ultimate Reality, a reality that personally loves us.

• As discussed in Adam’s latest book, Let Your Heartbreak Be Your Guide: Lessons in Engaged Contemplation, he brings to question WHAT HAS FOLLOWING OUR BLISS resulted in? Instead FOLLOW OUR HEARTBREAK.

• Continuing to go deeper into this, they discuss the profound relationship between joy and suffering; not the kind of joy that encourages us to avoid life, but the kind of joy that can face the difficulties and the suffering and still survive.

• Allowing the pain of others to touch of deeply (this was also spoken about during Ilia Delio and Swami Padmanabha’s conversation of Ilia’s podcast, Hunger for Wholeness), gives the space for the spirit of god to flow thru us and leads us into a life of compassionate service.

• Approaching people in need as if they are a project to be solved was not working for Adam. He realized that he needed to show up for people as he shows up in prayer. Being receptive and breaking with people, accompanying them through their suffering reveals the healing presence.

• Both Adam and Swami share how their traditions speak of praying as not limited to one act, but that every action can be prayer. Action not just RELATED to contemplation, but action AS contemplation.

• The paradox of Individuation in Service: on one hand, the goal is to find your purpose and mission in life and on the other hand, becoming an empty vessel in which God can live. It is our conception of ourselves, even our specialness, that has to die and in the process we discover the most of ourselves we have ever been.

• Swami asks Adam to share his experience in transitioning from monastic life to married life for him and his wife, who was a Buddhist nun for 15 years. Adam shares his profound response about love, vows, and reflecting god’s unconditional acceptance.

and much much more…

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▶ PURCHASE RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion in hardcover, paperback, and/or Kindle formats on Amazon

▶ WRITE your REVIEW of RADICAL PERSONALISM

▶ CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION: Gaudiya Reform Forum on Facebook.

▶ FOR MORE INFO: SwamiPadmanabha.com

Join Swami Padmanabha and Patrick Beldio, a Sufi practitioner, scholar, sculptor, and sweet human being, as they dynamically explore the connection between mystery, the mystic, and art in living relationship with each other.

Quote From Radical Personalism that opens the discussion:
“In general, present-day Gaudiya Vaishnavism seems to be stuck in what we may call an overdose of confidence, or a profound inability to deal with uncertainty, liminality, and paradox, all of which create a necessary displacement from our comfort zone. Instead of discarding mystery by claiming a perfect understanding, we are invited to harmonize and include all contradictions and dilemmas in a higher synthesis, as part of our inner project. We call this Radical Unknowing.”

• To this Patrick adds from his own early experience with the Catholic tradition, where often the “right answers” are taught, this prevents a living experience of knowledge, where there is nothing to discover on the other side.

• Then Patrick and Swami share a magical unfolding of the process of evolution of the artist through the art, regardless of the medium. The artists themselves do not fully understand what they are encountering, that they are contending with something that they don’t understand. This is the difference between artists and performers.

• Each new layer of discovery positions the artist n a new level of ignorance which leaves the artist feeling-un-finished. Patrick shares that each sculpture is an object of failure. Acknowledging the failure is part of the success of the art.

• Touched by a quote from Dostoevsky that “Beauty will save the world,” an illuminating discussion further ensues of how art is an entering into mystery and extracting a new sense of purpose, and how by finding that purpose, the world will be save. We are all invited to be artists and to enter int the unknown, extract meaning and purpose and offer that to the world. That is beauty.

• The creative process unites opposites and is a messy job. Those who appreciate that will be transformed. “Art reveals what nature hides” . The creative tension is to reveal the mystery, while at the same time retain the mystery and not feel the necessity to solve it. the artist facilitates a revelation of mystery beyond that of the mind.

• Patrick very openly and vulnerably shared his experience of entering the cave of mystery, and coexisting there for some time as part of his journey, participating in the spiritual exercises as design by St Ignatius, and the crucial role of surrender in the spiritual journey, where there is both an honest wrestling with and an opening to the divine’s will. Silence, and the profound breaking of that silence, has the ability to dissolve the boundary between that separates the gross plane and the spiritual plane, and “let the spiritual energy rain down on earth.”

• Vulnerability and unconditional love was discussed, and how, never having experienced such love, one may be traumatized by it, not knowing where to put it. The English word “blessing” is related to the French word “blessée” which means wound.

• The discussion wound its way to speaking about the value of opposition as fuel for progress and how this is an all-pervading theme throughout sacred texts. Patrick often discusses this with his students. We know that opposition is healthy but yet we still don’t like it. It is experiences as an imperfect means that manifests perfection.

and much much more…

▶ WATCH ON FACEBOOK

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▶ PURCHASE RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion in hardcover, paperback, and/or Kindle formats on Amazon

▶ WRITE your REVIEW of RADICAL PERSONALISM

▶ CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION: Gaudiya Reform Forum on Facebook.

▶ FOR MORE INFO: SwamiPadmanabha.com

Join Swami Padmanabha and Rory McEntee—founder, President, and Executive Director of the Charis Foundation for New Monasticism & Interspirituality, and co-author of The New Monasticism: An Interspiritual Manifesto for Contemplative Living—as they discuss a new way of conceiving an ancient way of being. Expanding Raimon Panikkar’s notion of “The Monk” as an archetype, this conversation invites a more inclusive accessibility to the total life commitment to one’s spiritual transformation and journey that was previously reserved for restricted orders within a particular tradition, and recognizes new ways that that commitment can be lived out beyond the traditional form of “monasticism”.

The flow of this river touched upon:

• the needs of teachers to have peers and not just students

• humanizing the over-expectations of traditional monastics

• how teachers offer student’s energy back to them

• teacher helps you sort through what to let go, what to embrace, and how to integrate that into humanity

• monasticism as spiritual bypassing

• demystifying the mystic

• redefining obstacles

• the power of simplicity

• dichotomizing spiritual and material life

• not just adding meditation to our life but our life to our meditation

• being discouraged by the wrong expectations

• normalizing sexuality

• monks, new and traditional, need to deal with their sexuality

• interfaith vs inter spirituality

• intimate fellowship beyond borders

and much much more…

▶ WATCH ON FACEBOOK

▶ WATCH ON YOUTUBE

▶ PURCHASE RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion in hardcover, paperback, and/or Kindle formats on Amazon

▶ WRITE your REVIEW of RADICAL PERSONALISM

▶ CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION: Gaudiya Reform Forum on Facebook.

▶ FOR MORE INFO: SwamiPadmanabha.com