by Gauranga Kishore Das (gaurangakishore@gmail.com) at March 13, 2009 01:42 PM
by Nityananda Chandra Das (noreply@blogger.com) at March 13, 2009 12:22 PM
If you visited Mahaprabhu Mandir sometime during the day you will have tasted a few drops of the rain of ecstasy that accompanies the remembrance of His appearance. 
jaya jaya nityānanda, nityānanda-rāma
"Let me take shelter of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krsna, who has descended in the form of Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu to teach us real knowledge, His devotional service, and detachment from whatever does not foster Krsna consciousness. He has descended because He is an ocean of transcendental mercy. Let me surrender unto His lotus feet. Let my consciousness, which is like a honeybee, take shelter of the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who has just now appeared as Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu to teach the ancient system of devotional service to Himself. This system had almost been lost due to the influence of time." 
by Syamesvari (noreply@blogger.com) at March 13, 2009 11:33 AM
Dear Prabhus, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Yesterday in Parammatta Sydney one westernised indian lady came to me while i was on books and said i want to buy a set of srimad Bhagavatam. I almost fell on the ground in shock. I couldn't belive someone wants a set while i'm struggling to sell even one book.
Then i asked how she knew about the Srimad Bhagavatam? she said i gave her a science of Self Realization last month. She read it cover to cover and she loved it. Belive it or not she was a born again Christian before reading the SSR. Now she is a vegetarian, chanting Hare Krishna, came to our parammatta Saturday feast and took her set of SB(against the will of her still born again Christian husband). She even changed her son's name from Joshua to Arjuna.
All glories to H.H Devamrita swami who inspires me to distribute books and all glories to Srila Prabhupada who wrote the books.
Aspirng servant, Shastra krit dasa
_________________________________________________________________ Windows Live. Groups: Create an online spot for your favorite groups to meet. http://windowslive.com/online/groups?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_groups_032009 (Text D:321357) --------------------------------------------
------- End of Forwarded Message ------
Dear Prabhus, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Yesterday in Parammatta Sydney one westernised indian lady came to me while i was on books and said i want to buy a set of srimad Bhagavatam. I almost fell on the ground in shock. I couldn't belive someone wants a set while i'm struggling to sell even one book.
Then i asked how she knew about the Srimad Bhagavatam? she said i gave her a science of Self Realization last month. She read it cover to cover and she loved it. Belive it or not she was a born again Christian before reading the SSR. Now she is a vegetarian, chanting Hare Krishna, came to our parammatta Saturday feast and took her set of SB(against the will of her still born again Christian husband). She even changed her son's name from Joshua to Arjuna.
All glories to H.H Devamrita swami who inspires me to distribute books and all glories to Srila Prabhupada who wrote the books.
Aspirng servant, Shastra krit dasa
_________________________________________________________________ Windows Live. Groups: Create an online spot for your favorite groups to meet. http://windowslive.com/online/groups?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_groups_032009 (Text D:321357) --------------------------------------------
------- End of Forwarded Message ------
Az utolsó bejegyzésem egy új bhakta blog indulásáról szólt. Ez a bejegyzésem is hasonló témájú. Hemangi mataji egy gasztro témájú blogot indított. Sokan ismerhetitek, hiszen ő a Vissza Istenhez Magazin szerkesztője, szuper lektor és nem utolsó sorban egy mesterszakács. Akik már ettek a főztjéből csak dícsérni tudták. Őt is már egy ideje lelkesítem a blogírásra, és láss csodát, elkezdte a Vegavarázs nevű blogját. 
Szóval, ha szeretsz vegetáriánus finomságokat főzni, otthoni praktikákat elsajátítani, akkor ezen a blogon szuper tanácsokat kaphatsz.
Még egyszer a blog címe: Vegavarazs.hu
What a transcendental sight! In the park near to the Lotus building, there were three Pandals put up for the bathing ceremony of Lord Caitanya. Each had a bathing sthana and all was tastefully decorated with a special kind of rare flowers and an opulence of garlands. From distant we heard a kirtan approaching, escorting the golden hued Lords on fancily decorated Singhasanas: two different sized Mahaprabhus were carried to the left Pandal for the male devotees’ bathing.
In the material world we tend to take things for granted when we succeed at something. At such times one is prone to think, "I have done it. I have won." In fact one should be grateful that Krsna has allowed for victory over material nature. Such triumphs are easily reversed. In the latter portion of the Bhagavad-gita we find three verses that recommend being equipoised in happiness or distress. Most people blame God for their misfortunes and credit themselves when destiny appears to smile on them.
I recieved this article from my aunt in New Zealand, and I couldn’t help but share it. While I was reading it, I remember a phrase I’ve heard from one of Ravindra Svarup prabhu’s lectures. It may not be the exact words, but the meaning and contents are the same:
“When we become a devotee, we work hard to become a perfect devotee. But, what’s next after we become a perfect devotee? That is we should work hard to become a human being.”
Remembering this, made me realize that most of the time we forgot that we’re also human beings who are working on the path of self-realization. Along that path, we’ll make mistakes and make progress, and along that path we forgot compassion because we’re too focused with our “philosophical” pursuits.
Caring for Every Devotees
By: HH Radhanatha Swami
"Everyone of you should be thoroughly convinced of the power of the Hare Krsna mantra to protect you in all circumstances and chant accordingly at all times without offense. Then advancement will be swift and you will gradually come to see everything clearly so that you may act for the pleasure of the Lord without uncertainty. When one is spontaneously engaged in this way, always in the service of the Lord and anxious to avoid all mundane activities, he is actually experiencing the taste of bliss in Krsna consciousness."From a letter to Damodara - January 10, 1971
by Rasa Rasika (noreply@blogger.com) at March 13, 2009 06:06 AM
We humbly request the prayers of all the Vaisnavas for their speedy recovery and spiritual well-being of two Mayapur residents, Jahnudvipa prabhu from Denmark, and his wife Brajasevaki dasi from Australia, who were badly injured in a car crash at Madhyamgram just near the Kolkata airport on the morning of 12th March 2009. Jahnudvipa has broken legs and possible internal injuries and is listed as very critical. Brajasevaki was unconscious with facial and leg injuries but not believed to be as bad as her husband. Both are now in the Apollo hospital in Kolkata.
Harinam in Carina
Date: Sunday, March 15th, 2009
Time: 2 pm
Location: Mayfield Rd and Waratah Ave, Carina
Please note that if it's raining we'll take a rain check this week. SMS 0431 929 675 for confirmation on the day if it's looking dodgy.
Next week I'm taking a couple of days of work to go on tour with Dave Stringer.
Dave is staying at our place next week, and Prahlad and I are going to go down to Byron Bay to do the sound for his concert there on Tuesday night, and then on Wednesday night I'm playing bass for him at the Yoga Den in West End.
I'm totally stoked about this. I love Dave's music, especially Aja Uttama, a track he recorded as a duet with Karnamrita dasi. Really looking forward to it.
If you are in Byron, come along on Tuesday night - it's at the Byron Yoga Center.
If you're in Brisbane, definitely come along on Wednesday night. The concert starts at 8pm, and Param Satya is cooking, so there will be "light vegetarian refreshments" afterwards. More details over at atmayoga.com.au.
I admire people who take religion seriously enough to challenge it. And I suspect God would too, if he thought ads on the sides of buses or atheist thoughts for the day were as worthy of his time as helping people find meaning in their lives and peace in their souls. Perhaps if we are confronted with better questions about the meaning and value of religion, we will be forced to find better answers.
- How I Learned Not to Fear the Anti-God Squad, Wall Street Journal
Big it up for the new atheist evangelists!
Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu Ki Jai! We thank everyone who took part in the grand celebration @ Radha Govinda Mandir. It was a great festival indeed. Please see some of the pictures from that night:
The week before Gaura Purnima, I was praying to Krishna to please let me do some service, for I’d been completely absorbed with work and school. Five days before the event, I got a call from Mother Nataka. She was asking me if I can do some cake for Radharani’s club fund raising for the temple. The moment I heard her request, I just said yes right away. I didn’t even asked her for the details because I was just overwhelmed with joy that Krishna fulfilled my desire for doing devotional service. I may sounds exaggerated here, but having the chance to do some service (in any possible little ways) is something that I really value, for it rarely comes to me. With my crazy busy life of going to school and working at same time, doing my part as a wife, as a friend, and as a daughter, now you know why I’m thankful. I don’t even mind not having time for myself. I arrive a little late at the temple because I was having some last minute fixture for the cake (I also fallen asleep a bit while fasting, LOL), but when I got there, it was all worth it because the devotees were happy with the cake. Matajis from the Radharani club told me that they don’t want to cut the cake because it’s too cute to be eaten 
. Anyway, they decided to auctioned the cake (as a whole piece) in order to raised more funds, and luckily an Indian couple bought it for a $100. I wasn’t there during the auction, so I missed the chance to asked the couple if I could have a tiny slice of the cake just to have a taste of it, LOL!
I don’t have money to donate for the temple, since I’m just a poor student. But, doing this somehow made me feel useful, and not just eating for free on Sundays. Thank you dear blue boy.
NOTE: I know my Lord Caitanya cartoon character doesn’t look at his best, but I promise to make him better next time.
Radhe Syam with their ever magnanimous presence.
Sri Sri Gaura Nitai! The cutest ever.
Jaya Nrsimhadeva! I just love His loving eyes.
He build a house in which the whole world can leave. Jaya Prabhupada!
More Radhe Shyam pictures:
Temple and devotee pictures:
More pictures of the cake I made:
Copied from, Our Srila Prabhupada, a Friend to All: Early Contemporaries Remember Him, Srila Bhakti Vaibhava Puri Maharaj is describing a some of his memories of Srila Prabhupada:
“I first met Srila Swami Maharaja in Calcutta. He was living in his family home at Sita-Kanta Banarjee Lane. This was in the early 1940’s, around 1943, when he was maintaining his medicine shop distributing formulas he had discovered. I was sometimes going there to that address with Sridhara Maharaja and Kesava Maharaja and our Asrama Maharaja. We went there collecting for Navadvipa and for other business. That is when I was introduced to him.
“Even in those early days he told me about his future program for visiting America. He showed us the books he wrote on the Bhagavata and his magazine, Back to Godhead. We talked about many topics and associated together in those years until 1946 or so.
“He often asked me if I would go with him to America. He wanted me to leave the institution and become the sub-editor of his paper. I told him that I was part of the institution and also so young, I did not want to go to the foreign countries. In 1948 I was sent by Srila Tirtha Maharaja (Kunja Babu) to the Ramananda Gaudiya Matha on the Godavari River to be the temple president there. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Prabhupada had installed the footprints of Mahaprabhu there in 1932. Some years after this Srila Swami Maharaja took the sannyasa order from Kesava Maharaja in Mathura. He left India from the Damodara Temple in 1965 and I did not meet him again until he returned from the Western countries.
“In 1971 he came to our Rajamundry Temple. I had wanted him to come to open the temple, so I had written to him, asking him to come. He wrote me back a letter that I still have here, agreeing to come. He also wrote that of almost all of his godbrothers, I was appreciating his preaching. Then he came to our celebration with some students, some sannyasis and brahmacaris. He stayed for one week. They also came to Vishakapatnam and he inaugurated our temple. For twenty days he stayed here with many of his senior students, but I don’t remember all their names.
“After this, Srila Swami Maharaja asked us to come back to Mayapura with him to attend the foundation-laying ceremony, which I helped to perform. He was inviting all of his godbrothers in Mayapura and I helped him at that time. Many came and saw the festival and attended the big feast. He received them. But then, some of them complained because he had accepted Prabhupada’s title. He told them how somehow he had allowed the students to call him that name, but it was an old issue and what to do now? We discussed this afterwards, and I told some of the godbrothers they should accept his name in light of all the service he has done to the world. Others in our lineage had taken that name, so what is the difference? When they all departed, prasada was distributed along with one book, cloth and five rupees. Krsna dasa Babaji was also present. I stayed there for seven days.
“Swami Maharaja requested our Ananda Prabhu to help in Mayapura with the cooking. Ananda Prabhu spent two years there with Maharaja as I had asked him. He was very strict, but could not deal successfully with the Western disciples and he left.
“Srila Swami Maharaja once asked me to speak to Visvanatha dasa, our old friend, who was at our village for seven days. He was Chief Minister from the brahmana community. Swami Maharaja wanted his disciples to be allowed to enter the Jagannatha Temple in Puri. He gave me one Krsna book, which I gave to Visvanatha. I asked him to please see if some change could be adopted there. However he was not a strong Chief Minister. He said he would try, but it was not done and he died. I saw Swami Maharaja another time when we all came to Calcutta for some big meetings.
“In 1977 we traveled with many pilgrims to Madhava Maharaja’s temple in Badrinarayana. Srila Swami Maharaja was staying for some time near Rishikesh. I went there along with Asrama Maharaja and some others. He was lying on the bed and was very glad to see us. One disciple, Hamsaduta dasa had written an article condemning a doctor scientist in Lanka who was an atheist. Even though Srila Swami Maharaja was lying down in weak health, we were all laughing. We took prasada and returned back.
“Once I said to him, ‘Maharaja, you should survive for ten more years.’ He answered, ‘How can I survive? You see my pulse.’ I saw that his pulse was not moving. I said, ‘Unless you stay, these Western disciples will not unite. They are strong-headed and they will fight. You must put them in line with our tradition. Previously I said, ‘Maharaja, you have established some gurus but Guru must be one.’ He said, ‘I have not selected. Only rtviks to act in my place now.’ I said, After your demise they will be gurus. Unless you bless a guru to sit on the Vyasaasana, they must go down.’ He said, ‘What to do? Everything is Krsna’s will.’ Then after some time in Vrndavana he passed away.
“He gave so much time and life-breath to serve his institution. No one else has done so much to improve our institution throughout the world. He received Sri Guru and Gauranga’s blessings. Once he said, ‘It is all my Prabhupada’s blessings. I have done my duty. Now the rest of it depends on the Lord.’ He labored hard. No other could do as he did in the foreign countries. He taught everything: how to cook, how to clean, how to prepare everything, how to decorate, and how to print books and include photos, book distribution. So much importance he placed on books , as our Prabhupada said. Big volumes with cover page he has invented. He possessed all devotional qualities. By his preaching in less than ten years — there is no other example of anyone doing like this — by introducing hari-nama in every town and village, he has fulfilled the prediction of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.”
Hare Krishna.
The east of England may be the most godless region of the UK, according to a "belief map" published by a theology thinktank today. Almost half of adults there believe the theory of evolution makes God obsolete, and more than 80% disagree with creationism and intelligent design, which propose that humans were created by God in the past 10,000 years, and that life owes its complexity to divine intervention.
- Four out of five Britons repudiate creationism, Guardian UK
My commentary: That's what happens when you "hard link" your metaphysics with a superseded empirical model.
by noreply@blogger.com (Mayapur Katha) at March 13, 2009 01:23 AM
by noreply@blogger.com (Mayapur Katha) at March 13, 2009 12:57 AM
Anushruti has been corresponding with me for years regarding all things culinary.
I'm happy to note that she has commenced a very nice cookery website. Check it out!
The Komola Kheer recipe really caught my eye. I haven't cooked or tasted that since 1972, when I was being trained in the arts of Temple service and cookery by Chitralekha devi dasi, wife of Upendra, and my first kitchen guru. A very special Bengali Sweet. I remember Chitralekha spending hours dissecting each individual orange cell from each orange segment. The result was a work of art.
by noreply@blogger.com (Devadeva Mirel) at March 12, 2009 09:09 PM
Issues in connection with climate change has become an everyday topic in media. While some years ago even greater mess of the leader scientists did not want to openly side in this question, now more and more studies come to light what declares that global climate crisis is not a question but a fact. These studies urge international steps and cooperation.
Actor Paul Newman had started a salad dressing/spaghetti sauce company which ended up using the proceeds above operating expenses to donate millions to charity. Such a project would create jobs in a very difficult time and sustain the feeding of many hungry people with a virtual prasadam factory based on local, seasonal food production.
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 12, 2009 05:18 PM
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 12, 2009 05:11 PM
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 12, 2009 05:08 PM
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 12, 2009 05:05 PM
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 12, 2009 05:01 PM
Two Mayapur residents, Jahnudvipa Dasa from Denmark, and his wife Brajasevaki Dasi from Australia, were badly injured in a car crash at Madhyamgram just near the Kolkata airport this morning. A full story will be published this Saturday. |
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 12, 2009 04:56 PM
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 12, 2009 04:54 PM
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 12, 2009 04:50 PM
That was 4 days ago. After the temple, the Internet centre has to be the most visited here. I have made at least 4 visits in a day and each time I was turned away. The owner asked me to come after 10pm for the possible chance of an availability of a machine ! And when I did get a computer a few times during the course of the day, its super slow. I tried posting this day 2 article on Sunday which was day 2, but after 1.5 hrs, I couldn’t even open the main page of this blog. Its 9:30pm now and its working !! So here I go…but I will make it short as I need to wake up for Mangal aroti……apologies for the delay in writing and all the days of happenings will follow soon….
Day 2, 8 March 09
Mayapur
Today was a relaxed day. Besides the deep prayers, I spend the day looking around and absorbing the location. People gazing is an amazing thing, especially if you have a camera in hand. Just as you step out of the Mayapur ISKCON temple, a few devotees had set up stalls selling various products and services.
Devotional books for the kids
This devotee basically had his store in a suitcase. A red suitcase. He was selling numerous devotional books for the kids. I think this is great. I also started my devotional inclination by reading hundreds of such books. The kid above wanted them all but the father decided on a few select ones. The devotee didn’t have any stall…he just took up his position under the tree and started to invite people to come and have look. Ahhh…entrepreneurship is so wonderful.
Mayapur Academy on wheels !
Mayapur Academy had the coolest looking stall which attracted many visitors. It was created a few days ago by the Deity Worship Minister, Nrsimha Kavacha Das. It was basically a big shelf with 4 bicycle tyres. It was all painted in a single “tilaka” color and the ear panels were used to put up class photos, brochures and posters. You can see my poster on the right ear panel. Also, on Gaura Purnima, they have announced a full scholarship for students for the November intake. It will cover all accommodation, tuition fees and meals. Write to them for more info.
Get your hats ! Get your badges !
A full table ! They had everything from hats, badges, hand bags, wallets, mobile phone covers, t-shirts….all very colorful. This was popular amongst the many overseas devotees who are here. Hmmm…I need to get one of those hats. Maybe black.
The painter
This young devotee, very silently, sat near the lotus pond and decided to create his own product. One day, he might even have this auctioned off at high prices ! Oh man…I should have bought it when it was going low !
Pancakes anyone ?
One of the highlights of the Melbourne temple for me is the serving of delicious prasadam matching the cuisines of South and North India. Everything from sambhar rice, pappadums, pooris, mixed vegetable curries, samosas, gulab jamuns….all there in Melbourne temple. And here in Mayapur, I have been living off pasta, spagetti and pizzas !! And never did I think that I would be having pancakes with pudding on the side after Mangal aroti prayers. But it was brilliant. I have been having 2 servings of pancakes ever since. Beautiful ! The devotee makes them at home and sells it at the temple. I am going to miss these.
The deity making shop
Ah yes, once again I had the privilege of spending some quality time with the twin pujaris of Mayapur - His Grace Pankanjangiri and His Grace Jananivas prabhu. When I bid farewell after my last year’s visit, they asked me if I would return, perhaps during Gaura Purnima in 2009, they said. But I responded by saying that it may not be possible yet I will try. And in their signature style reply, they said, “Krsna will arrange”. And He did !! When I saw the pujaris, I said, “I am back !”. In a very silent and humble sort of way, one of them said, “Thanks for coming to Mayapur”. And I said, “Thanks for asking me to come”. In the late afternoon, we visited one of the shops to look at the status of some deities that were being made. It was a grand experience to see senior devotees instruct on exactly what they wanted regarding the designs. You can see Nrsimha Kavaca prabhu study some pictures of deities. It was nice to see them speak in English to the artist with some Bengali thrown in. And it was even more amusing to see the poor artist reply back in Bengali with some English thrown in.
Going back
After about an hour at the artist shop, it was time to head back to the temple. And I waked behind the senior Vaishnavas. So lucky, I thought. Yes, I think I am. I am at Mayapur, aren’t I ?!
New Vrindaban’s deities looked resplendent in a new outfit and the altars decorated with flowers and fruit. HH Indradyumna Swami started the evening program with an enlivening harinam parikrama up to the Palace of Gold and back, followed by a lecture, a dance performance, an ecstatic kirtan and abhisek, and of course a sumptuous feast! Thank you to all the devotees who brought bhoga preparations and did other service to make this a successful event.
For the past several weeks, I’ve been giving quite a lot of thought to a few things that Srila Prabhupada has said that could be seen (by pretty much anyone) as controversial. Over the next week, I am planning on reviewing these statements.
There’s been quite a bit of talk about this already, but much of that, in my opinion, is made of either excuses or anger. Neither will be here. I’m in no position to make excuses for Srila Prabhupada and I really have no time or patience for anger, especially about spiritual matters.
I plan on simply being fair. I am pretty good at not taking things out of context, but also not allowing the context to be used as a free pass.
While these topics have been discussed, ISKCON has not really addressed them. They almost did when the whole “footnotes” thing came up, but it quickly died down.
And actually, the “footnotes” thing is what originally got me thinking about this. Some devotees wanted to add footnotes to some of Srila Prabhupada’s books in order to explain some of the controversial things he had written. Those footnotes never came to be.
My take on that was that I didn’t believe that Srila Prabhupada’s books should be changed in any capacity. They are his books (for better or worse). Just as I’d be against changing Stephen King’s books or Mark Twain’s books, I’m against changing Srila Prabhupada’s books. Basically, if you want the books to say something they didn’t say, write your own book and say it yourself - that’s the tradition in our line (and in the real world too!).
Anyway, my soul searching on this issue has very little to do with book changes. It has everything to do with my own reconciliation with some statements made by Srila Prabhupada.
Until this point, I basically ignored it. I knew that he said some controversial things - hell, I even knew what most of them were - but I excused all of them with the “he’s from a different generation in a different culture” pass. While that is most certainly true and does, in my opinion, explain some, it does not explain all.
Mostly, those are the ones that I’ll be exploring.
I won’t be hitting upon the spiritual differences between Srila Prabhupada’s teachings and other Gaudia-Vaisnava groups. I’m not qualified to do that. So things like “origin of the jiva,” etc won’t be touched here.
What I’ll be posting will definitely not be everyone’s cup of tea. But it’s my promise that it will be devoid of anger (because I’m not angry) and fair/balanced (but not in a Fox News sort of way). Much of what has been written about this is long, ranty and often boring. I’ll try to be brief, to the point and hopefully not boring.
At this point, I don’t really have an opinion. I have some thoughts, but I don’t know where I stand (or, in some cases, where to stand). And if it’s also fair and without anger, I would very much enjoy feedback on this from anyone. Angry stuff and long rants will be deleted no matter which side you’re on.
All of this said, no matter how this turns out, it will not waver my faith in Gaudia-Vaisnavaism even a little bit. Quite to the contrary, it will strengthen it.
Again, help is always welcome. And if there be questions, feel free to ask.
by Rasa Rasika (noreply@blogger.com) at March 12, 2009 02:22 PM
Jahnudvipa dasa and Braja Sevaki dasi suffered a head-on crash with a truck in the early hours of this morning on the way in to Kolkata, at Madhyamgram just before the airport.
Remember, children are watching.
From: Pointing and waving gives kids a head start in life
Children from richer families tend to do better in school, and some of that edge may arise through an unexpected mechanism, according to research presented at the AAAS meeting by psychologists at the University of Chicago.
It turns out that mothers with higher socioeconomic status communicate more through gestures with toddlers, which seems to give them a larger vocabulary when they turn up in school at between 4 and 5 years of age.
Susan Goldin-Meadow and Meredith Rowe have studied 50 families from all levels of Chicago society, from households earning less than $15,000 a year to those bringing in more than $100,000. They observed 49 mothers (and one dad) interacting with their 14-month-old children at home for 90 minutes, recording the number of gestures with distinct meanings.
Many of the gestures consisted of pointing, and the researchers scored a new gesture for each different object pointed at. Wealthier parents gestured more with their children, who responded in kind, and later had larger vocabularies, the researchers report in Science.
Richer parents also talk more to their kids, but gestures add an extra dimension to story. “These effects are above and beyond what we see in speech,” Goldin-Meadow told reporters at the AAAS.
This sparked the interest of one Swedish science journalist, who wondered what it meant for children in reserved parts of northern Europe, compared to kids in more exuberant countries such as Italy. Goldin-Meadow reassured him that while Italians “gesture big”, they don’t necessarily gesture more than northern Europeans.
How does gesturing at kids help them learn? Goldin-Meadow doesn’t know for sure, but she suggests that pointing at different objects while naming them creates “a perfect learning opportunity”.
She also has some evidence that gesturing makes the brain more receptive to learning, through research on older children showing that hand waving can help in learning mathematical problems.
Posted in Science
The sun's rising and I'm off to the North Sydney Hare Krishna Temple (Corner Miller and Falcon Streets) to cook a 13-course dinner feast for 800. Yes, of course I've got some helpers. Many, in fact. And there's room for more if you wish to assist.
And dinner is free of charge, though any contributions are welcome. It's the culmination of a day of chanting, fasting and festivities celebrating the yearly full-moon birthday celebration of Sri Caitanya, the most recent avatar of Krishna who appeared in West Bengal in the fifteenth century.
See you there, 5.30 pm culminating with the feast at 8.00pm! Chant and be happy!
Postscript: The feast was a grand success, well over 700 guests attended, and I spent today getting myself back into shape for a busy cookery weekend. 'No rest for the wicked'.
A couple more points on making your resume / CV:
Run a spell checker over it
You would be amazed how many cover letters and CVs I receive with spelling errors that would easily be detected and corrected by an automated spell checker.
We specify that CVs should be sent to us in pdf format, but people will often send an accompanying cover letter in Microsoft Word format. (They would get bonus points for taking the hint and sending the cover letter in pdf format too...) When I open many of these cover letters in Open Office I immediately see a whole lot of red lines from the Open Office spell checker.
When these people are applying for a job writing professionally we don't bother going any further.
Have someone else manually check it
Their are many errors that an automated spell checker won't find, like the first word in this sentence; or if I accidentally miss out word.
Get someone else to go over it and look for these kinds of errors. If you can't do that, take a break for a few hours, print it out, then read it as if you were an HR recruiter reading it for the first time. One common pitfall when editing your own work is mentally reading what you meant to say, rather than what you wrote.
First Impressions count
Do it wrong and it may be the only one you'll get.
Your CV is your first impression, it's your best foot forward.
We're in a global recession, heading into a depression right now. Whether you've been made redundant, finished a contract, are returning to the workforce, or are just getting started, you are competing with a lot of people for few jobs. Be the best you can.
by Bhaktimarga Swami (noreply@blogger.com) at March 12, 2009 08:31 AM
No matter how they may try, fine artists never capture the beauty and symmetry of a flower. They merely copy and try to give viewers an impression of the real thing. At any art gallery in Auckland, New Zealand in 1972, Srila Prabhupada said this: "You are painting one picture, one flower, very nice flower. You have to take your brush, the color and the plate, so many things, and you are taxing your brain, how to make it beautiful. But you see one rose flower in the garden. Not only one rose flower, many millions of rose flowers, they are coming out very artistically painted.
by Vrndavana Vinodini dd (noreply@blogger.com) at March 12, 2009 12:52 AM
After receiving my hundredth badly written CV today...
When you're making your CV:
Cut the BS
Get rid of all marketing-speak: Results-driven, team player, outcome-oriented, paradigm-shifting, etc... I mean, please!
Cut to the chase
Remove all the clutter. I don't care about all the different versions of software that you've used. The ability to use different tools is what I'm looking for, and that's demonstrated by what you've done with them. You can give me details in an interview, if I want to hear about them. Intrigue me with your CV.
Use a clear information hierarchy
Do you know how many of these things I have to look through?
Here's what I'm looking for:
Overall pattern / Narrative
What jobs did you do in what order, what's the overall pattern in your career, and is our position the next logical step in the story?
Who you worked for, what you did, how long you did it
Make it easy for me to pull this information out by using filters in my brain. If you apply unique styling to each of these aspects (font, font style, physical layout), then I can mentally switch filters in my brain to pull the information out.
The order that I want this information in is the reverse of the title above - it's "when, what, who".
Examples:
Bad
Marvin is a results-driven Business Process professional. He is a strong team player who excels in outcome-oriented environments where using best-of-breed methodologies to shift the paradigm is the order of the day.
Work Experience
Company X Level 1, 455 Venice Blvd, Downtown, STA 5067
Jan 2008 - Present
Position: Methodology Consultant - CorpTech Services
Key areas of responsibility included, but not limited to:
--------------------------------------------------------------
Analysis
Actually, this might be a good CV if you're chasing a job where you spend most of your time talking and writing about doing things, and very little of your time actually doing those things. Large corporations can afford to support people like that.
However, here are a couple of things that could be changed to make this one crisper and cleaner:
Better (in my book):
I am a Business Process expert. I'm seeking opportunities to apply my natural talents and accumulated experience to a challenge where I can make a positive difference.
Professional History
2008 - Present
Methodology Consultant - Company X
Internal business process engineering.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Here's what we changed:
1. Get rid of the "talking about yourself in the third-person like you are your own marketing department" section.
2. Clearly state your intention and path.
3. Work Experience? - "Professional History"
4. Use a clear information hierarchy. List your jobs from most recent first to oldest last, with the date range clear. No need to break it down to months unless they are really short, like 3 or 6 month contracts.
5. I don't need to know the addresses of your employers. If I do, I can find out. What I want to know when I look at your CV is "when, what, who" - in that order.
6. Brief statement of what the role entailed.
7. Major accomplishments only. Don't tell me you are "results-driven" and "outcome-oriented" and then talk about process. You sound like a talker, not a doer.
The idea of the CV is to paint a broad picture, and invite a dialog. Sure you didn't do ISO 9001 certification single-handedly, but to find out what your role in it was I need to talk to you about it. It's intriguing. Your CV is a story-telling device.
You may not have much to put on your CV yet, but don't worry. You should think carefully about the story of your life so far, and what the next episode would / should be, then aim for that, while using a CV that tells that story.
I got my first job at a PC assembling company in 1994. I had been washing dishes for a year in a cafe. However, at the same time I'd done a short course in microcontrollers, and had sketched some schematics of a single chip computer. I used those and my CV to tell a story of someone who was washing dishes and looking for a break into the IT industry.
For my next job, as a programmer, I delivered my CV as a 3 1/2" disk with my CV as a Visual Basic program on it.
Distinguish yourself from the crowd.
And do the hard yards. Decide what your career path is, and apply yourself to it. Do courses, read books, study your craft.
Your CV is a form of marketing - make sure that you have good marketing, and a good product.
by Vrndavana Vinodini dd (noreply@blogger.com) at March 11, 2009 10:49 PM
While searching for information on the evolutionary narrative around multi-host parasites I came across this interesting article: The biomedical sciences: variation and species differences.
This article makes a very strong case for the ineffectiveness of animal testing of drugs, based on genetics.
The existence of intraspecific variation is but a foretaste of the biological problems confronting those who seek to use animals to model human biomedical phenomena. As Darwin observed in the Origin of Species:
As each species tends by its geometrical rate of reproduction to increase inordinately in number; and as the modified descendants of each species will be enabled to increase by as much as they become more diversified in habits and structure, so as to be able to seize on many and widely different places in the economy of nature, there will be a constant tendency of natural selection to preserve the most divergent offspring of any one species.
Hence, during a long continued course of modification, the slight differences characteristic of varieties of the same species, tend to be augmented into the greater differences characteristic of species of the same genus [[3]:108].
In other words, one effect of evolutionary processes in the formation of new species, is essentially to amplify the differences that existed in the varieties belonging to the common ancestor from which the new species descend in the course of evolutionary time. Thus, further bad news lies in the fact that interspecific variation is likely to be even more of a problem for the animal modeler than the already confounding intraspecific variation we have just discussed.
...
The consequences of the belief that humans and rodents are the same molecular animal dressed up differently can be (and have been) catastrophic. As Goldstein recently put it in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine:
One of the most striking features of modern medicines is how often they fail to work. Even when they do work, they are often associated with serious adverse reactions. Indeed adverse reactions to drugs rank as one of the leading causes of death and illness in the developed world
Big it up for Darwin, animal rights activist.
Note: this is actually a genetic argument against animal testing. Evolution is just the back story - it could be easily exchanged with another back story, but this is the current predominant scientific one, so another back story might prejudice the "scientific" nature of the argument. You could make the same argument without a back story, just on the basis of genetics. However, with evolution in the picture the two, the genetic argument and the evolutionary back story, reinforce each other. The same is probably not true for a "creationist" back story.
by Bhaktimarga Swami (noreply@blogger.com) at March 11, 2009 09:52 PM
It’s been a while since I updated my blog. Hay…….. Like I said before, I’m procastinator numero uno.Aside from being like that, I’m also busy managing my lifetime business of how to make my spiritual life and material life (ok, I know this is only temporary )balance sheets somehow of equal and stable gross results. Anyway, so much for my lame excuses,here’s my first new post for the new year, the year of the bull. Hopefully, this year won’t be all BS like the past 4 yrs. Thanks to Bush, and we’re all now in a s#$thole!
Blast from the past!
1) The day when my elusive husband finally allows me to tie a pony tail(it seems like that to me,hehehe) on his precious hair! This is such a rare opportunity, and it might never ever happen again .
2)Disney world trip just before Christmas. Thanks Andrea for the free tickets! I had a blast
3) No, it wasn’t for Halloween, lol! I was recruited by Amrita to play as one of her evil minions for her role as Surpanaka in the Ramayana play. Since I don’t need to utter a single word during the play,I said yes.
New Year’s Eve and Day celebration! Hello 2009!
My new year’s celebration is not complete with out fireworks and firecrackers (this one I have to settle for a tiny blast, I miss the one we have back home, lol). Our good friend, the “Polish Mafia”, Pandava and Dhanudhara celebrated it with us. On new years day, we decided to go bowling which me and husband really suck on it. I don’t have a lot of expectations for this year of the bull, but I’ll still try my best to do whatever it is comes my way. 2008 was a good year both for me and my husband, thank you Krishna for that. I wish everybody all the best for this year spiritualy and materially .
Monday, January 16, 2009 Free KD Day!
It was Dr. Martin Luther King’s Day, and Radha, Deva and I are on our way to Alachua to play field hockey with devotees. It was a bright beautiful day, and I was so filled w/ anticipations, for it was my first time to play such a very physical game. First times are always full of surprises!The game was dedicated to Krishna Das who is battling w/ leukemia, and everybody give their best on it. Thanks to Karnamrita prabhu and his good wife Radha who organized the event. Although I haven’t meet him and don’t know him personally, my prayers and best wishes for him and to his family. Just what like Koreans say when they’re in an unfavorable situation, Aja, aja, fighting! Krishna das prabhu, you can do it!
January 20, 2009
Who would dare to forget this remarkable day?!Hmmmm….. fill in the blanks……I’m glad that he won! The guy deserves it! I’m not really politically inclined, so I’ll let the pictures say it all. Credits to boston.com for all the amazing pictures.
Ahhh….Pictures really does paints a thousand words! On the other hand, my good friend Stephen Colbert, of course, will always have a say for everything, and I mean everything that even Pres. Obama can’t escape it.
“This is just a re-posting of my previous disclaimer post. I feel the need to re-post this before I start blogging again .
Hare Krishna! Lately, I have been really busy with work and school, so I didn’t have the time to update my blog site. Now that the semester is almost over, I’m gonna start blogging again. But before that, I would like to post this disclaimer first. Last year, as I was reading my good friend’s blog, Mandakini, I came across with her disclaimer notice, and I realized that I had been somehow irresponsible with my postings since some of it are not Krishna Conscious. This blog is all about anything what goes around and comes around in my life, and for that, I like to fully express myself without any hesitations. Just like Mandakini, I don’t want to censor my blog either, otherwise, it would sounds like someone else’s thoughts, so you’ve been warned: Surf at your own risk
Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
………Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
……..Her pleasant lot.
She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
……..And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
……..That sadly sings.
Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
……..The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
……..Upon her hand.
Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart’s core
……..Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
……..Her perfect peace.
I would like to sell the gopala. com domain to a devotee.
If you are interested in purchasing it, please contact me at Giridhari.HDG@gmail.com or by leaving a comment below .
I’ve owned it since the early days of the Internet!
Your servant, Giridhari Das
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 11, 2009 05:20 PM
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 11, 2009 05:19 PM
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 11, 2009 05:17 PM
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 11, 2009 05:15 PM
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 11, 2009 05:11 PM
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 11, 2009 05:10 PM
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 11, 2009 05:09 PM
by letters (wmdean@btopenworld.com) at March 11, 2009 05:06 PM
I ran into Shashi Patel this weekend at Bahulaban while waiting for a kirtan to start. Old timers will remember him as being involved with New Vrindaban design work back in the 80s. He has been the architect for 29 temples since then including ones in Florida, Bangalore and Arizona.
It was interesting because he saw a lot and experienced a lot back in the day here so there were so many stories that came to mind.
It seems he is going to be involved with the renovation of Bahulaban. Bahulaban is the place Srila Prabhupada actually was at when he visited New Vrindaban. The Palace was under construction at the time, but the current temple and activity centers were all post Prabhupada era construction.
Bahulaban was abandoned at some point and is in a state of great disrepair. As about 250 of Prabhupada’s disciples went through initiation ceremonies there, it can be seen as a holy place. A holy place that NV has been around long enough that it needs to be restored. That is common in India, abandoned holy sites, but not so common here.
Adi Guru is putting together a team and overcoming so many obstacles to push this project forward. He was saying that since everything starts with the Holy Name, having a kirtan at Bahulaban on Gaura Paurnima was the way to kick off the active stage of the Bahulaban renovations.
The first step will be to fix up the altar and temple room and temple room addition. They were built onto the original farmhouse and are salvageable. The farmhouse itself will be torn down and rebuilt on the same original sandstone foundation.
It was enlivening to me that Dr. Patel had just been at an architects’ convention and that the stress had been on green construction, so he is all on board with making Bahulaban an example of it.
At Shashi’s request, a surveyor will be coming out next week to map out the Bahulaban area, locating the existing buildings on a map and plotting in elevation lines at 5′ intervals for planning purposes.
He designed Raghu and Jamuna’s house in New Vrindaban, an earth sheltered home, well known to New Vrindaban devotees as a wonderful place to have kirtan also.
Posted in News, Ramblings or Whatever
by Vijay Teli (noreply@blogger.com) at March 11, 2009 03:29 PM
Shortly after our arrival, Maharaj's transcendental body was taken in a procession around the Gundicha Mandir, and also the Chaitanya Chandra Ashram, entering the Puri Bus Stand, and returning to the ashram.
***Update - 10:00am - 03/10/09 - The temple was not able to secure free parking at the underground parking lot on Pears Ave. Devotees are are encouraged to find legal parking on the surrounding streets. However if street parking is unavailable, please feel free to park at the Pears Ave lot, at a cost of $5, and provide your receipt to the temple reception desk for reimbursement.
Nimai wants the moon.
In this way a blissful day turned into a full moon night. After engaging the servants in their evening duties, Sacidevi took Nimai into the courtyard for some fresh air. The full moon was climbing the sky. Acting like an innocent boy, the clever Nimai cried, "Mother! Mother!"
Sacidevi said, "Don’t cry. I will give You whatever You want." The Lord replied, "Mother, please give Me the moon." Saci said, "Can anyone catch the moon in the sky?"
Nimai said, "Then why did you say that you would give Me whatever I wanted? For this reason, I asked for the moon." Then Nimai began wailing. Holding the comer of Sacidevi's sari, He kept crying while rubbing His eyes with His free hand and kicking the dirt with His feet. Nimai was insistent; He wanted the moon. Gaura Raya clutched His mother's sari and yanked her hair. The next moment He hit her in the head with His hand. Still unsuccessful, He rolled on the ground and cried.
Sacimata said, "O Nimai, You are incorrigible and Your behavior is most unusual. How can I possibly catch the moon in the sky? There are already so many moons on Your body. Look how the moon has become ashamed before You. Out of shyness, he is now hiding himself behind the clouds. O my son, please listen."
Then Sacimata placed Nimai on her lap and showered Him with kisses. Obsessed with parental love, Sacidevi forgot herself in transcendental bliss. Her voice became choked up in ecstasy. Locana Dasa joyfully sings the glories of Lord Gauranga. Moonstruck yet?
Not yet, then this should do the trick!
If you would like to contribute to our year-long "celebration" of Darwin's 200th birthday, please send your articles, editorials, or any other creative and informative pieces to nvclub108@gmail.comLike many parasites, liver flukes require several entirely different host-species to carry them through the various stages of their life-cycles. As adults, they live in the livers of cows, where they mate, and their eggs are then excreted via the host’s fecal matter. Terrestrial snails that eat such matter become infected by the fluke’s larvae, which settle in the snails’ digestive tracts. The snails protect themselves by forming cysts around the little parasites, which are then excreted in turn. Ants looking to snail slime as a source of moisture simultaneously ingest these cysts, which are each filled with hundreds of juvenile flukes. These juveniles are free to wander throughout the ant’s body, but one in particular moves to the sub-esophageal ganglion, and this is where the most extraordinary element of this whole story takes place.
We can already recognize that the development and survival of such parasites requires an incredible degree of synchronicity and precise co-ordination. It is inconceivable that the myriad specific adaptations required for the parasites to not only thrive in the various host species, but to take advantage of unique processes within the hosts themselves (e.g. the snails’ cyst-manufacturing processes), could all have simply ‘evolved,’ unplanned, unguided, and all ‘by chance’ – along with the actual processes by which they are transferred from one host to the next.
Yet putting all such observations to the side for the moment, let us continue our story from the point where one fluke has journeyed to the aforementioned cluster of nerve-cells lying just underneath the ant’s esophagus. Somehow or other this fluke is able to manipulate the nerves there so as to cause the ant to act in a most peculiar manner. What happens is that as evening draws near, such an infested ant leaves the nest and climbs to the top of a blade of grass, where it locks itself into place with its mandibles and patiently awaits being eaten by a grazing cow. Should no cow happen to graze on its particular grass-blade, the ant climbs back down at dawn to rejoin the rest of the colony, and so escapes the heat of the day which would kill both it along with its parasitic controllers. In other words, it has now been programmed to follow a suicide-mission specifically tailored for the benefit of the flukes.
This fascinating scenario raises many questions. How did the first fluke that was swallowed by an ant come to figure out how to pilot such an alien craft, how did it determine its destination (the cow’s liver) as well as the actual means by which it could arrive there (involving activities entirely foreign to the fluke itself, e.g. climbing up grass-blades for the night, locking mandibles in place and awaiting the approaching ‘jaws of death’)? And of course, the favorite old conundrum, suitably reworded for this particular example: which came first (as far as the fluke is concerned, that is): the cow, the snail or the ant? Or isn’t the simple fact that all three are required simultaneously? What series of gradual adaptations could be imagined that could have led up to this spectacularly complex and precise set of arrangements? How can the fluke’s behavior be explained by any undirected random evolutionary process? Rather, it suggests a level of foresight and planning, i.e. intelligence, that in no way can be ascribed to the fluke itself. Perhaps that’s why they call it a fluke.
by Club 108 (noreply@blogger.com) at March 11, 2009 08:00 AM
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