An Authentic Life 1.1 for pdf - Universalist Radha-Krishnaism

and Rama is another name of God meaning the Supreme
Pleasure Eternal.”
I resonated with God being male and female
halves engaged in an eternal love affair. It tangibly
embodies the idea “God is love.”
Swami stressed that God is a person, and we
are “parts and parcels” of God formed in God's image.
We have eternal spiritual identities that transcend
this bodily concept of life. Our purpose is to serve
God--Krishna.
However, I was an adherent of the Buddhist
concept of void, Vedanta’s impersonal Brahman, or
the White Light I experienced on LSD trips. I wanted
to merge with the impersonal oneness and lose individual
identity. I preferred the egoless state of pure
consciousness I experienced peaking on acid to the
suffering of this world. Buddha said, "Life is suffering."
As I put it, "Life sucks." I wanted out and didn't
want to come back again.
Swami explained that because the soul is individual
and personal it can’t find satisfaction in impersonal
oneness and therefore eventually returns to the
material plane. Swami offered a way to reach a spiritual
plane of variegated, personal bliss where one
could remain eternally. "Stay high forever" was his
slogan. It sounded real good to me and many other
tripped out hippies. If only it were so easy.
Swami advocated “no intoxication, meat eating,
illicit sex, or gambling.” I didn't have a problem
accepting no meat eating or gambling, but I was heavily
into sex and drugs such as LSD and pot. I was an
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