Pranada Comtois on Culturing Wise-Love (#79)

In this episode, Pranada and Jacob discuss Bhakti philosophy and theology.  You will learn: The connection of Vedanta teachings with Bhakti teachings. What is Wise Love (Bhakti Vedanta) and the difference between the love with others? The relationships with others as a vehicle to fully express highest love with each other and as a practice for our individual relationship with the Supreme. The acknowledgment of the small self and the creation of a dynamic, magical, spiritual, irrevocable and strong connection with source. How the yoga system provides tools to control the mind and go beyond the mind to transcend the platform of self. The difference between faith and belief. The important distinction between the divine feminine and the feminine divine. Pranada’s work on gender inequality and education, the absence of gender in the concept of soul, and everyone’s equal access to the full spiritual realm, practices, and services regardless of gender. The harmonization and oneness of the head and the heart and how to transcend and become our full potential as spiritual beings. Pranada Comtois is a devoted pilgrim, teacher, and award-winning author of Wise-Love: Bhakti and the Search for the Soul of Consciousness. Her writing sheds light on bhakti’s wisdom school of heartfulness with a focus on how to culture wise-love in our lives and relationships so we can experience the inherent, unbounded joy of the self. “Mindfulness and meditation alone can never satisfy the self. Joy comes from an awakened heart, not from a controlled or stilled mind.” At sixteen she met her teacher A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami and began her lifelong study and practice of bhakti. The wisdom of her teaching grows from living for twenty years as a contemplative in bhakti ashrams, and another twenty years raising a family and running two multi-million dollar businesses. Pranada is an activist in women’s spiritual empowerment. She has always been deeply affected when witnessing the de-humanizing of women. She was the first to speak up for gender harmony in the modern bhakti tradition and successfully organized global steps against gender injustice. Her writing has appeared in Integral Yoga, Rebelle Society, Elephant Journal, Tattooed Buddha, Urban Howl, and the books Journey of the Heart, Bhakti Blossoms, and GODDESS: When She Rules. She is a featured speaker in the film Women of Bhakti.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.