2024 Swami Padmanabha

0:00 Swami Padmanabha accepts the invitation and extends the invitation to partake in this opportunity of Istagosthi, which is not about coming together to figure things out but that coming together trying to incline each other to the depth and greatness of the ultimate truth and trusting that getting together in that spirit will reveal something not possible to be obtained by ourselves.

11:26 What is the role of hospitality in the revitalization of our spiritual life?

29:04 How can we uphold high principles and practices of bhakti while embracing and embodying our humanity and the reality of our situation.

54:53 When you say that everything is Krishna, do you mean that every living being, every object, every reality is Krishna?

01:04:17 What is self-love? If I find happiness in something and I engage in that, is that what is meant by self-love?

01:13:36 How do we know when we are in our comfort zone or we are just trying to stay balanced?

1:25:51 What can we do when we are overwhelmed by challenges that seem unbearable?

01:39:24 My life feels so mundane and separated from spiritual activities. I have to wonder, “Am I doing enough?”

WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/live/IvLZZx0oJ9I
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RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion.

0:00 Swami Padmanabha shares our common hopes for today’s gathering and further reflections on the recent self-love in bhakti series of classes given in Alachua, FL.

04:49 Are we meant to search for a guru or will a guru find us? And how do we know when we have met our guru?

33:51 A not-yet-known listener joins in and becomes known

37:16 How can we harmonize the perspective that bhakti is very difficult, with only 1 out of thousands coming to know Krishna in truth, with the perspective that Krishna’s unconditional love is already coming to us.

01:01:45 How does “feeling good” about our service play out in a healthy way? What is our motivation for service if we don’t yet feel compelled internally and don’t want to force ourselves artificially?

1:19:31 I’ve been told that chanting or praying silently is impersonal. Is that true?

▶ WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/Um_F8juH2E0

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RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion.

~ Tadatmya Sangha’s Channels

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~ Swami Padmanabha’s Channels

▶ FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/swamipadmanabha108

▶ YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@SwamiPadmanabha

▶ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/swamipadmanabha/

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0:00 Swami Padmanabha shares how “Istagosthi” means coming together around our all-attractive common center, and what that looks like in practice.

15:11 Can you clarify what you meant when you said that there should be some philosophy during long kirtans, 8 hours or 24 hours. Isn’t chanting in kirtan enough?

41:55 How can we balance being and becoming, because there is a tendency to want to be something else instead of embracing who we are?

59:13 How can we balance our conscious attempts to be more God conscious with the feeling that every day I fail in doing that?

01:29:24 Is there room for contentment in bhakti?

WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiBNuAFiIV0
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RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion.

You are invited to join Swami Padmanabha and Tamal Krishna das as they affectionately share Sri Radha-Gadai katha. Listen in as they sprinkle insights that have flowed into their hearts.

Katha is followed by a sweet kirtan.

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RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion.

In this last session of a 3-part series on self-love in bhakti, learning how to relate to ourselves, Swami Padmanabha contextualizes self-love in God’s unconditional love.

To accept deeply that Krishna already loves us—that his love does not and cannot be earned by some meritorious deed—is a healthy motivating factor in our bhakti practice. We need not be driven by fear, or guilt, or the pressure to perform to try to make god like us, but rather we can move out of a desire to reciprocate with what is already coming. And in the context of that reciprocation, we also love what is in connection to him. And that everything, including us—that is self-love in bhakti. If we really want to love Krishna, we will learn to love ourselves.

But who are we? Do we have an identity beyond our human doings and our human havings?

In this session, we are invited to explore the certainty of god’s love that resolves all uncertainties in its context, aligns brokenness under blessings, and retires fears by its strength. Learning to see ourselves as god sees us, we are invited to inhabit his reality and be who we already are —“I am someone who is loved by Krishna. I am god’s beloved.” And THAT is AMAZING.

▶ WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/live/0IzxiIS9x6c

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RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion.

“Of all types of knowledge, I am knowledge of the soul. I am fully present in those moments when you grasp completely who you are, with all of that’s implications,” Krishna explains in the Gita. Self-love is one of those implications of knowing what the soul is.

In this 2nd of a 3-part series on self-love in bhakti, Swami Padmanabha grounds our sense of self in the foundational knowledge of the self, the truth of the soul, atma-tattva, which Krishna can say is no less than “Amazing…amazing…amazing.” And he loves that amazingness.

This series digs deep to the foundational truths upon which our bhakti temple is built. If our foundation is skewed, whatever is built upon it will be increasingly off balance, and eventually, the structure will collapse. This is true with our conceptions, as well as buildings. If our foundation of bhakti contains a dysfunctional relationship with our own being, a misunderstanding of who we are, of how Krishna sees us, then every other step in our journey after that—how we relate to others, to the world, to Krishna—will also contain elements of that dysfunction.

Tune-in as we hear who we are in God’s eyes; how considering ourselves disconnected and separated is the source of all illusion; and how self-love is part of relating wholesomely to everything that is connected to the center of nondual reality—to the heart of god—so that means everything.

And still…. the inner voices of self-loathing come: I’m despicable, not enough, unlovable, stupid, ugly, unworthy, cursed…And it is this self-loathing, self-denial, self-rejection is the very opposite of reality, of God’s reality. For him, we are shockingly amazing.

▶ WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peuceVdjcHE

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RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion.

0:00 Swami Padmanabha shares some insight from the class, SELF-LOVE IN BHAKTI: Learning to Relate to Ourselves (part 1), which he gave the previous night introducing another way of speaking about integrative, wholesome and healthy paradigms with which to approach our spiritual life.

01:43 Swami spontaneously honors the sacredness of the Istagosthi, describing it as a way of circumambulating with respect and honor the center, our ISTA, the all-attractive Sri Krishna. It is an opportunity to gather together, acknowledging our interconnection with each other around a common center.

06:40 What is the importance of Ekadasi? Is it beneficial to myself and pleasing to Krishna if I do something in a ritualistic way, before I feel connected internally?

29:38 In RADICAL PERSONALISM, you speak about the nondual reality of the Absolute. What do you mean when you say we must train our minds in non-dual thinking?

54:30 How much of our free will is free? What influence do the planets have on our free will?

01:11:38 In the context of self-love in bhakti, how do we love those aspects of ourselves that directly oppose our engagement in spirituality?

▶ WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFuxaqoTXrI

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RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion.

~ Tadatmya Sangha’s Channels

▶ WEBSITE
▶ FACEBOOK
▶ INSTAGRAM
▶ YOUTUBE

~ Swami Padmanabha’s Channels

▶ FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/swamipadmanabha108

▶ YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@SwamiPadmanabha

▶ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/swamipadmanabha/

▶ WEBSITE: https://swamipadmanabha.com

Swami Padmanabha introduces a 3-part series on the pivotal theme of self-love and its essential place within bhakti: is self-love “legal” in the bhakti tradition?; how can we express self-love, self-care, self-compassion in a way that nourishes our bhakti and our connection with the center, with everything else, which is also connected with that same common center?

Tune in as the assembled sages engage in collective contemplation, exploring the ramifications of practicing bhakti devoid of self-love, as well as self-love separated from bhakti. Witness the revelation as a consensus emerges, and shapes a new perspective from which to see bhakti, ourselves, our source and our relation to all.

▶ WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/live/rq4ShL8cEtI

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RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion.

0:00 Swami Padmanabha invites all to participate in this exchange of questions and answers in a mutual reach into the potential of relating with one another—to awaken, acknowledge and celebrate the fact that everything is interconnected as we explore the reach and depth of that connectedness in the ocean of TADATMYA—empathy. What’s the heart? What’s my heart? What am I in potential? What are you? And what can happen when multiple potentialities combine with each other under the banner of TADATMYA: empathy, openness and relationality? Istagosthi is the online laboratory to explore this.

03:17 Swami shares news of his upcoming lecture series on place of self-love in Bhakti—is it possible beyond narcissism?; as well as the progress of his current book, now writing about how matter is not as inert as we may think.

05:31 How can we devotionally approach and conceive of the limits presented to us due to aging or chronic illness?

26:32 How should we interpret and harmonize these two statements: “the guru is a representative of god” and “the guru is a manifestation of god”?

49:34 Could you explain how we are to meditate on the meaning of the holy name while chanting japa?

01:05:57 Sometimes we hear that we should not desire to go to Goloka Vrindavan—that that is a selfish desire—and also the opposite: that we should intensely desire to go there. Can you please speak about this?

01:24:52 How can we relate to difficulties so that we do not fall into victim-consciousness?

▶ WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2-_wptytu0

___________________________

RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion.

~ Tadatmya Sangha’s Channels

▶ WEBSITE
▶ FACEBOOK
▶ INSTAGRAM
▶ YOUTUBE

~ Swami Padmanabha’s Channels

▶ FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/swamipadmanabha108

▶ YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@SwamiPadmanabha

▶ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/swamipadmanabha/

▶ WEBSITE: https://swamipadmanabha.com

Step into this profound exchange, nestled within the embrace of caring, seasoned companionship. Here, kindred spirits come together as brothers and sisters, courageously embracing their uncertainties.

0:00 Swami Padmanabha powerfully reflects on the importance of the reality “There is only one family” and on that basis coming together, talking and thinking about what our contribution is in this time; what is necessary in this particular moment that we can respond to; coming together and looking at each other’s faces…in each other’s eyes, and being as close as we can be—allowing each other to have a voice, furthering our appreciation for the depth of the reality that there is only one family in which we all already belong; everything is connected.

08:28 I often feel I don’t fully understand what is being conveyed in sacred texts and in conversations between devotees. There are phrases that are commonly used but I don’t understand what they mean. Can you please explain what is meant by “Lotus Feet”? Why lotus? Why feet? What do the markings on Krishna’s feet represent?

28:57 Is it really free choice that brought us to be where we are today?

53:07 It seems like there are qualities, like pride, that come as we advance in our bhakti practice that actually work against us. Can you please explain how to deal with this?

1:08:24 How can we deepen our experience in bhakti?

1:22:38 How can we improve relations between members of traditional parivars and contemporary expressions of Gaudiya Vaishnavism?

1:35:58 Can you speak more about “repression, suppression, depression” that you write about in the Individuation Chapter in Radical Personalism?

▶ WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67kQN0zGVmQ

___________________________

RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion.

~ Tadatmya Sangha’s Channels

▶ WEBSITE
▶ FACEBOOK
▶ INSTAGRAM
▶ YOUTUBE

~ Swami Padmanabha’s Channels

▶ FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/swamipadmanabha108

▶ YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@SwamiPadmanabha

▶ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/swamipadmanabha/

▶ WEBSITE: https://swamipadmanabha.com