The Free Radical Podcast

We are delighted to welcome to the The Free Radical Podcast renowned musician, author, and spiritual seeker Havi Prabhu—also known by his artistic name Ilan Chester. Widely regarded as one of the most influential voices in contemporary Spanish-language music, Havi’s life and work span more than four decades of international artistry. Born in Israel to European parents and raised in Venezuela, his musical world was formed at the crossroads of cultures. A gifted pianist from early childhood, he developed a deeply expressive and stylistically open musical language that has resonated across genres and generations. With nearly 30 albums, hundreds of performances worldwide, a Latin Grammy Award, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Latin Recording Academy, his artistic legacy is both prolific and enduring. Alongside his musical journey, Havi has also walked a profound spiritual path. Initiated in 1973 by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and given the name Havi Das, he spent five years living as a monk dedicated to bhakti yoga, serving and teaching in Venezuela and Colombia. Today, he continues to embody a life woven together through music, devotion, and lived experience—now also as a father of seven and grandfather of eight. In this deeply human and wide-ranging conversation, we explore music, kirtan, prayer, community, and the healing power of being truly seen and affirmed. We reflect on fame and how to hold it with integrity, the lived experience of spiritual practice, and the formative encounters with Srila Prabhupada that shaped Havi’s journey. At its heart, this dialogue opens a space for honest reflection on trauma, creativity, devotion, and the search for wholeness through relationship and expression. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOtq82rYPnk 👉 Connect Further with HaviIG: h / ilanchesteroficialYT: / @ilanchester6784FB: / ilan.chester.2025WWW: https://ilanchesteroficial.com/ ▶ CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION: Gaudiya Reform Forum on Facebook .~ Swami Padmanabha’s Channels ▶ FACEBOOK ▶ YOUTUBE ▶ INSTAGRAM ▶ WEBSITE ▶ PURCHASE RADICAL PERSONALISM: Revival Manifesto for Proactive Devotion in hardcover, paperback, and/or Kindle formats on Amazon ▶ WRITE your REVIEW of RADICAL PERSONALISM ~ Tadatmya Sangha’s Channels ▶ WEBSITE ▶ FACEBOOK ▶ INSTAGRAM ▶ YOUTUBE

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

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 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/ ▶ 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

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 ▶ 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

Join Swami Padmanabha and Ilia Delio, a Franciscan nun, author, theologian, scientist and much more, as they explore the importance of language and how it shapes our experience of reality. Carrying the unique yet mutual threads of their traditions, the conversation flowed through reflections on: •Evolution as our reality in relationship •Love as the core energy of the universe •Suffering as part of loving •Compassionate expansion of the heart •The interests of God: adventure, play, love •Creativity and chaos •Unfinished humanity not failed humanity •This earth has the potential to be heaven •Navigating technology - the nature of it as an extension of personhood •Religion’s responsibility to enter into and shape the discussion of technology •Technology of seen as solving “the problem of God” •A flat humanity will mistake emotional mimicking of technology as love 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

In this episode of The Free Radical Podcast, Swami Padmanabha and Bhaktirasa discuss the necessity of the moment to upgrade our tradition’s past by recognizing our current responsibility to stay alive in our present participation rather than rest on the past achievements of great stalwarts who came before us or arrest our progress because of the tradition’s past mistakes and immaturity. If the Sweet Absolute is always expanding, becoming ever more himself/herself, that creates an even a great necessity to continually adapt anew. TUNE IN for more reflection on: • OUR MISSING ELDERS - responsible elders listen to the upcoming generation and provide supportive guidance to address their concerns and help translate the tradition’s essence into a new language that keeps participation relevant and progressive. Elder’s can empower the next generation through trust. • UPDATING OUR LANGUAGE isn’t just about learning the new catch phrases so we can attract more people, but it is about reconceiving traditional terms with deeper and broader understanding • NOSTALGIA is not meant to be an institutionalized form of faith • WHITEWASHING our historical downsides • PRETENDING TO BE PERFECT because we do not accept that we are already UNCONDITIONALLY LOVED • EVOLUTION does not speak of survival of the strongest but rather greater capacity to adapt and change • BETWEEN DENYING AND BLAMING IS GRIEVING - and it might take an entire generation to grieve past traumas into a place of compassionate healing AND 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