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Radical Personalism: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion
How can we be all that we can be today—not tomorrow, but today—as living emblems of devotion, and then facilitate that epiphany in others? What are the fullest implications of being a person, and, even more so, what are the implications of God being a person? What is the highest prospect for these two uniquely personal beings when they relate to each other through love, the most personal of all fundamental interactions?
This is Radical Personalism.
Padmanabha Swami has done something unique in Radical Personalism. Drawing from the richness of Gaudiya Vaishnavism and other mystical traditions, as well as the multi-disciplines of science, psychology, and sociology, he has taken a broad look at societal and institutional concerns, scriptural misunderstandings and misapplications, and individuals’ psychological hindrances that thwart the embrace of our fullest potential.
Exploring in candid detail, with insight and compassion, the complex topics that have troubled many of us in spiritual pursuit, Radical Personalism can clear muddled thinking; instill hope where it is absent; ignite enthusiasm and determination where apathy has taken hold; encourage honesty and dethrone duplicity; bring light where darkness prevails; inspire us to leave aside the pettiness, sectarianism, and fundamentalism that have gripped various Gaudiya groups in recent decades; and usher in a united and vibrant Gaudiya community devoid of the barriers that currently divide us.
On the whole, this book is a comprehensive examination of how to return Gaudiya spirituality to a lived mystical tradition, as intended by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
Pranada Comtois,
author of the award-winning
Bhakti Wise-Love, Bhakti Shakti, and Prema Kirtan
This is Radical Personalism.
Padmanabha Swami has done something unique in Radical Personalism. Drawing from the richness of Gaudiya Vaishnavism and other mystical traditions, as well as the multi-disciplines of science, psychology, and sociology, he has taken a broad look at societal and institutional concerns, scriptural misunderstandings and misapplications, and individuals’ psychological hindrances that thwart the embrace of our fullest potential.
Exploring in candid detail, with insight and compassion, the complex topics that have troubled many of us in spiritual pursuit, Radical Personalism can clear muddled thinking; instill hope where it is absent; ignite enthusiasm and determination where apathy has taken hold; encourage honesty and dethrone duplicity; bring light where darkness prevails; inspire us to leave aside the pettiness, sectarianism, and fundamentalism that have gripped various Gaudiya groups in recent decades; and usher in a united and vibrant Gaudiya community devoid of the barriers that currently divide us.
On the whole, this book is a comprehensive examination of how to return Gaudiya spirituality to a lived mystical tradition, as intended by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
Pranada Comtois,
author of the award-winning
Bhakti Wise-Love, Bhakti Shakti, and Prema Kirtan
445 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 27, 2023
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August 15, 2025
Standing on the threshold of my own spiritual pursuits, with the way I approached my tradition no longer able to hold the hope it once had and its frayed edges starting to unravel due to my own outdated conceptions, Radical Personalism: a Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion arrived in perfect timing.
I see the invitation as being one of reconception: to revisit my shallowly understood concepts I had given definition to 4 decades ago, when I was different and so was the world—before I had any personal experience beyond a simple resonance and attraction that let me know that the path of devotion held for me a unique reach into the world of the Divine; before discretion could be based on anything more than the solidified shape of tradition and doing things because that is how they were done was enough, was reassuring. Quite honestly, I feel that Radical Personalism invited me to take a long hard look at my own self—without judgement, without shame, but with clarity and naked unconditionality, with a gaze of compassion and the fearlessness garnered through accompaniment. As I felt inspired to peek into my own dark corners, I recognized, at least to a certain extent, how much of what I was finding objectionable in my chosen spiritual tradition was my own garbage that I had strewn along the path, my dysfunctions hung on the limbs of devotion as if they were her own ornaments rather than my unresolved traumas decorated so expertly in the coverings of devotional makeup. The invitation to reconsider and redefine hardened religious concepts arrested those thieves with the fluidity of a heart in motion and opened the door to catch a glimpse of the dynamic ever-present, ever-unfolding mystery of divinity who does not (just) exist in some far-off land, having set a domino effect in motion and split to watch the experiment of creation devolve into a smoldering pit, waiting by the escape hatch for those who made it through the gauntlet—but rather an involved divinity who is so complete and absolute that their self-love includes, in no less intensity, love for each of us; whose transcendent loving nature is the thumbprint within every atom and who can be found here and now, not by denying this world but by relating deeply with it.
The inspirational and transformational energies of this book are very intertwined for me. Because this book came into being as part of the author’s own healing journey with his spiritual tradition, and therefore, involved the moving and struggle of his own heart, it is not merely a collection of words placed intelligently on a page. It is process-oriented, action-packed volcanic mass holding in potential more than knowledge isolated from experience—quite the opposite. It is knowledge born from experience—knowledge born from the fire of ordeal; knowledge born from the confrontation of facing the collapse of a well-ordered world; knowledge born between the grinding grains of midnight desert sands; knowledge born of grace mixed with blood and sweat and tears. This is a workbook. And although I cannot claim to have “worked” it very well, what to speak of perfectly or fully, I can admit without hesitation that it has worked me in the process of opening myself to such possibility. Although a conceptual framework is given, it is one built upon the radical acceptance that the framework itself is in a process of constant unfolding, constant becoming so that change and movement and growth toward a deeper embrace of reality becomes itself a reality, existing not only in potential but in actualized presence.
Would I recommend this book - well, I do so for those who have been desiring a “holy shift” toward humanity-affirming god consciousness; toward inclusivity and deep belonging; toward dialogue that begins with hearing; toward living beyond the death of our small ideas of ourselves and our world that make us believe we are separated, isolated, independent and alone; for those who say, “Yes! I want to explore how I can be all that I can be today as an attribute of devotion. And I am willing to open myself to hear the answer knowing that my greatest responsibility is to flesh out as much as I can all that I can be today.”
I see the invitation as being one of reconception: to revisit my shallowly understood concepts I had given definition to 4 decades ago, when I was different and so was the world—before I had any personal experience beyond a simple resonance and attraction that let me know that the path of devotion held for me a unique reach into the world of the Divine; before discretion could be based on anything more than the solidified shape of tradition and doing things because that is how they were done was enough, was reassuring. Quite honestly, I feel that Radical Personalism invited me to take a long hard look at my own self—without judgement, without shame, but with clarity and naked unconditionality, with a gaze of compassion and the fearlessness garnered through accompaniment. As I felt inspired to peek into my own dark corners, I recognized, at least to a certain extent, how much of what I was finding objectionable in my chosen spiritual tradition was my own garbage that I had strewn along the path, my dysfunctions hung on the limbs of devotion as if they were her own ornaments rather than my unresolved traumas decorated so expertly in the coverings of devotional makeup. The invitation to reconsider and redefine hardened religious concepts arrested those thieves with the fluidity of a heart in motion and opened the door to catch a glimpse of the dynamic ever-present, ever-unfolding mystery of divinity who does not (just) exist in some far-off land, having set a domino effect in motion and split to watch the experiment of creation devolve into a smoldering pit, waiting by the escape hatch for those who made it through the gauntlet—but rather an involved divinity who is so complete and absolute that their self-love includes, in no less intensity, love for each of us; whose transcendent loving nature is the thumbprint within every atom and who can be found here and now, not by denying this world but by relating deeply with it.
The inspirational and transformational energies of this book are very intertwined for me. Because this book came into being as part of the author’s own healing journey with his spiritual tradition, and therefore, involved the moving and struggle of his own heart, it is not merely a collection of words placed intelligently on a page. It is process-oriented, action-packed volcanic mass holding in potential more than knowledge isolated from experience—quite the opposite. It is knowledge born from experience—knowledge born from the fire of ordeal; knowledge born from the confrontation of facing the collapse of a well-ordered world; knowledge born between the grinding grains of midnight desert sands; knowledge born of grace mixed with blood and sweat and tears. This is a workbook. And although I cannot claim to have “worked” it very well, what to speak of perfectly or fully, I can admit without hesitation that it has worked me in the process of opening myself to such possibility. Although a conceptual framework is given, it is one built upon the radical acceptance that the framework itself is in a process of constant unfolding, constant becoming so that change and movement and growth toward a deeper embrace of reality becomes itself a reality, existing not only in potential but in actualized presence.
Would I recommend this book - well, I do so for those who have been desiring a “holy shift” toward humanity-affirming god consciousness; toward inclusivity and deep belonging; toward dialogue that begins with hearing; toward living beyond the death of our small ideas of ourselves and our world that make us believe we are separated, isolated, independent and alone; for those who say, “Yes! I want to explore how I can be all that I can be today as an attribute of devotion. And I am willing to open myself to hear the answer knowing that my greatest responsibility is to flesh out as much as I can all that I can be today.”
Displaying 1 of 1 review