Satsvarupa dasa Goswami - May 22, 4:19 A.M.

I had a peaceful night. I woke with heavy constipation. I got relief from it by taking Fleet enema. I thought of the jester Gopal Bhand’s remark that passing stool was one of the greatest pleasures in life. Another thing to be grateful to Krishna for. Now I’m late. I’m chanting my second round at 4:20 A.M. Narayana is very kind to me.

4:46 A.M.

I’m short on time. I’ll only get four rounds done before Narayana comes up at 5:00 A.M. The rounds I chanted were hurried, not so good. But I give my life to them. I’ll surely get my quota done before the day is over. Today we’re having important guests—Kaisori, Kaulini, and Kaisori’s daughter Kalindi. It’ll be a great treat to see them again. But it will take time off from my japa and writing. I hope I’ll be able to get enough done.

Japa essay

Japa is the art of saying Radha and Krishna’s names with devotion. What do we mean by devotion? You’re saying Their names with concentration. You practice to hear them devotionally. In the higher stages, you say them with devotion for the Supreme Persons Radha and Krishna, with thoughts of Their pastimes together throughout the eight divisions of the day. You are familiar with what They do together, and you meditate on them—the rasa dance, the swing pastimes, the pastimes in the water, amorous pastimes, etc. But in the beginning of japa, devotion can mean devotion to the practice of simply hearing the sounds of Hare, Krishna, and Rama. You know at least that this practice is the topmost and easiest yajna in Kali Yuga. You have faith that you reciprocate with Radha and Krishna when you say Their names, so you concentrate on the syllables themselves. It is best not to jump over to prematurely meditating on Radha’s and Krishna’s amorous pastimes instead of concentrating on the sound vibration. The powerful sound vibration will lead to the higher realizations.

It is best to sit erect and enunciate the names and hear them stream from your lips and teeth. Have confidence that everything will follow from that. Prabhupada occasionally made remarks that we could think of Radha’s and Krishna’a pastimes while chanting. But his main emphasis was “just hear.” Hear with attention and await for the higher revelations to come. Be humble, and the stages of seeing Krishna, meditating on His loving exchanges with Radha, thinking of His qualities, and hearing with ecstasy will naturally come.

Japa time is treasure time,

measured out in gold,

done with your best intentions,

keeping on the goal,

Japa time is treasure time

so don’t use it carelessly.

Put your best effort into it

even though distracted

it will count in your favor.

7:00 A.M.

A big tractor is out on the beach smoothing the sand for the Memorial Day weekend. It’ll start coming out once a week now. It’s a pleasant, warm morning, sixty-two degrees with not a cloud in the sky. The sunshine is brilliant. I’m thinking more of the things I have to be grateful to Krishna for; this morning’s relief of constipation, this beautiful morning at the beach. There are many material plesantries given by Krishna, if you are alert to them. There are undoubtedly miseries. So how do we take them in a mood of gratitude to Krishna? We can take them as reminders that this material world is not mainly a pleasant place. The bodily and situational miseries can be taken as reminders that this is not our home. Prabhupada has described moments of happiness as being brief interludes between the constant “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Nevertheless, when the pleasant moments come, we can’t help but savor them. A wise man is cautioned not to be overjoyed by good fortune. Neither should he be depressed when bad things come his way. He should remain equiposed. The Bhagavad-gita says the temporary pleasures and miseries come from the senses, and one must learn to tolerate them without dismay. Our real life is the life of the spirit soul, and we should be attentive to his progress only.

Today should be pleasant with our friendly, enlightened visitors. I hope we will be able to keep Krishna conscious conversation. Narayana is preparing a special “Tex-Mex” lunch of tacos, enchiladas, and guacamole. After that, I’ll talk with our guests in the yellow submarine. Kaisori is an intellectual, warmhearted devotee, and I can expect a high level of conversation with her. Kaulini is so saintly that whatever she says will be uplifting to the spirits. Kaisori’s daughter Kalindi is in her twenties and maybe a little shy, but I am sure, if I ask her questions about her musical vocation, she’ll have plenty to say. Narayana will be present for propriety’s sake and will no doubt add something substantial.

I trust I’ll have time in the late afternoon to make my prayer to Krishna, although as yet I don’t know what I will write. He always welcomes me to speak, and I always have something I want to say to Him, even if it’s mostly petitions.

8:25 A.M.

This is from a CD called The House that Trane Built: The Best of Impulse Records. The first cut is “Stolen Moments,” by Oliver Nelson. I believe I already described a song called “Stolen Moments.” You can’t steal time because you can never get it back once it’s past. This is by a rather large musical group, but they’re playing straight jazz, starting off with a trumpet solo, with solid backing by the bass and drums. So it’s up to us to think about stolen moments. We should steal moments from the material activities. If you have a fifty-hour-a-week job, you should not settle for that. You should steal moments from material life, steal moments from family entanglements, steal moments from all the things that keep you from practicing Krishna consciousness. All those hours in front of the TV set and frivolous talk in gatherings. Steal them! You’d be surprised how much time you can save for Krishna if you’re just determined about it. So that’s what we should do. The stolen moments are used in the service of Krishna. A beautiful flute comes on, reminding you of Krishna’s flute. He is the one who steals the moments when He plays His flutes. He steals the hearts of the gopis, who run out of their houses to go and join Him in the forest. He steals their hearts, He steals their lives by the sound of His transcendental flute. So there is something good in thievery when it’s stealing from forgetfulness of Krishna. A calm, tenor saxophone comes on. It’s stealing more moments for sublime jazz. Jazz steals moments from the mundane doldrums, brings us into a wonderland of delight. It’s not illusion if you can listen to it in the right way, as we are doing in these prose improvisations. We’re stealing moments from our late mornings. We’re not stealing them from our japa. Oh no. But from time we might be drowsing or sleeping or just spacing out. We’re using these moments in Krishna consciousness. So if you call that stealing, then stealing is good.

Krishna Himself is the greatest thief. He used to steal butter from the gopis’ homes. When He was caught, He denied it. Krishna was an honest child. But He did cheat sometimes. He was stealing moments in the sense of stealing hearts through attraction to Himself. He made the cows stop eating grass and just stand motionless with the grass in their mouths. He let the calves steal the milk from the mothers’ udders because they were in ecstasy over Krishna’s flute. Or they stopped drinking the milk entirely, and the moments of their nourishing were stolen while they listened to His flute. Let everything be stolen and placed at the lotus feet of Krishna.

“A La Mode,” by Art Blakey. This is upbeat. With a la mode, we usually think of apple pie with ice cream, some delightful desert. This is certainly delightful music, with Art Blakey’s group playing together fast. They’ve got a head that they play first before they break into solos. The drummer’s keeping excellent time, hitting the stick on every four measures in addition to his regular beats. Then comes the tenor saxophonist, wailing a la mode. He’s backed up by little flurries by the rest of the group as he carries the solo alone. Then comes a trumpet perking, keeping the fast beat sustained by the bassist and Art Blakey himself, the greatest of drummers. They’re bringing this one home all the way. No time for relaxation. This album is typical of the Impulse recordings. The tenor sax is hardworking, and so is the trumpet. Charles Mingus drove it home. Just think of a man in a cafeteria having apple pie a la mode after a small sandwich. Think of all the wonderful meals that Krishna enjoys int he spiritual world, the best sweets. And you can get that even in the material world at Krishna conscious temples. Food offered to Krishna. A trombone plays with Blakey’s stick keeping metronomic time behind. It’s hard bop, upbeat, crashing cymbals, like playing in the ocean surf on a hot summer day. A tasteful piano solo. Blakey continues to keep the time with one click for every four beats, along with additional pedal for every beat. He’s like two drummers playing at once. Now the head again. Thank You, Krishna, for preserving this record in its entirety, and thank You for letting us enjoy it. All music comes from You, and all inspiration, and these talented musicians get their vibhuti, special empowerment, from You. And they give it back to You and to all of us, so we’re thankful, very thankful for this upbeat tune, “A La Mode.” It fades out in a tasteful way.

“Theme for Lester Young,” aka “Goodbye Porkpie Hat,” by Charles Mingus. This is a solemn ballad, an elegy for the poetic master tenor saxophonist Lester Young. Charles Mingus wrote it the night that he heard Lester Young had passed away. Mingus was playing at the Half Note, and after he heard of Young’s death, he went home that night and wrote the tune. It’s a sad, funereal march. But it’s graceful, not depressing. It’s saying goodbye to a great saint. Saint? Well, maybe Lester Young wasn’t a saint, but he was one of the greatest poetic tenor saxophone players of his day, and we can call him a “saint” for that. A saint in music. He played in Count Basey’s group and created a whole group of disciples, among them Stan Getz. After the head, there’s an improvisation by a tender tenor saxophonist crying and moaning for the disappearance of the beloved one. He’ll be no more among us, that man who wore the porkpie hat. The man who used to give out names to jazz musicians. He gave the name Lady Day to Billie Holiday. He coined the word “bread” for “money, and he gave the name Sweets to Sweets Edison. He was a real hipster. He was a poet of the tenor saxophone, not playing hard and raucous but playing tenderly. And that’s how a tribute to him should be played, which they do on this track. Charles Mingus had it right in his theme for Lester Young. How nice that he went home that night, his mind filled with the loss of Prez (a name for Lester Young), and wrote him a goodbye song, wrote the whole world a goodbye song for Lester Young, who would be missed. No more hearing his sax except on some not-so-great-quality recordings. But his memory lives on, and his disciples live on. And love for Lester Young will never end. The head is very sweet and melodious, and that’s the inspiration that Mingus carried in his head as he went home after leaving the Half Note and wrote it down in musical notes, to be played by many musicians afterwards, including Mingus himself.

“A Love Supreme, Part 1, Acknowledgment.” This is the beginning of the suite written by John Coltrane. The liner notes he wrote for this are a prayer to God. He told how he overcame drug addiction by having an experience of God, which enabled him to stop the habit. From then on, he became a disciple of God. At the end of his life, he said that in the next seven years of his life he wished to become a saint. “Acknowledgment,” the first part of “A Love Supreme,” starts out slowly with John Coltrane playing a call, a cry to God. He’s like a preacher starting in a temperate tone. Coltrane is famous for his call, his cry. This is a written part, but he plays it with improvisation also. Nothing he ever did was ordinary. It repeats itself and climbs in the meters. Sometimes he cries in a very high register. He sounds like a human voice, like a preacher in the pulpit. Like a saintly man. Then he drops to a lower note and rolls it over and over, his prayer, his acknowledgment of God. “A Love Supreme” is a love of God. He says that God is everything. God is the wind and the rain and the sun. He’s everything in nature, He’s everything in creation, everything comes from Him. He calls out to Him, his Beloved. He wants to know Him better. With his tenor saxophone, he climbs and climbs and reaches higher realms of spirit. Then his group of men start to chant, with their human voices, “a love supreme, a love supreme, a love supreme....” This is very surprising and touching on a jazz album to hear masculine voices praying like monks the words “a love supreme.” He keeps repeating the same “words” on the tenor saxophone, “a love supreme, a love supreme, a love supreme.” It’s interesting how he inverts the words. Instead of “a supreme love,” he says “a love supreme.” His artistry. A love supreme, a love supreme. Their voices chanting together. They chant and drop it one measure and say it some more. Their voices sound tender and reverent. Then McCoy Tyner comes on for a tasteful piano solo. And then Jimmy Garrison stops all the music and plays his solo bass. Everyone stops to listen and hold their breath. He stops the rhythm and prays his own prayer.

“Los Olvidados.” This is Spanish for I don’t know what, by Archie Shepp. He plays with his group and his own screaching, unique style. He’s been known to be an angry man, involved in civil rights. Fighting for black rights. But most of all, he’s a musician. “Los Olvidados” has a Latin air to it. It starts and stops in eccentric divisions and artful segments. A drum introduction leads to the group’s playing more Latin music. It’s a pleasant piece, not one of anger. A trumpet solo. Krishna has given him talent, and they’re playing it strongly for Him. It’s a serious piece of music, not fooling around but played with grace and drive. The trumpets turns to the mute, and the music becomes more solemn. I think of Krishna and His varieties. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast, sometimes sad, sometimes happy. Krishna’s playing all the notes through Archie Shepp. It seems to wander. It makes you wonder. Where are they going? They take us on a trip. Then suddenly Archie Shepp steps up and plays his angry tenor riffs. He plays with great power, and behind him, the group gathers and ornaments his playing. He’s a unique artist. One of Krishna’s special men, full of uniqueness and individuality. He cries out. He moans. He’s got something to say that’s not so happy, but he makes it beautiful. That’s the blues.

11:00 A.M.

My Dear Srila Prabhupada...

I would like to thank you with feelings of gratitude for the favors that you have granted me in this lifetime and for events that have happened that have turned out auspicious.

I would like to thank you for saving me from being a literary writer. This was my great desire and vocation before I met you. I was prepared to be a writer, whether successful or a failure, for the rest of my life with full dedication. I remember when I joined the Krishna consciousness movement, I visited The Atlantic Monthly offices in Boston and asked them how I could have an article about Krishna consciousness accepted. They told me they would not print an article about the movement per se as coverage of a religion. They said the only way I could get an article printed was if I became a recognized writer with literary contributions in general and then wrote an article about Krishna consciousness. When they told me that, I realized I did not want to take the path of trying to become a literary writer but wanted to become a Krishna conscious writer, even if it meant not being printed in The Atlantic Monthly or some other publication. I would rather write for Back to Godhead magazine and the BBT, even though they were relatively small. I would prefer to write for Krishna rather than to be my own writer. So I’m grateful you saved me from that. In more recent years, I have tried being a writer with my own voice, not just a mouthpiece for ISKCON. But I have dovetailed it so that it is writing in Krishna consciousness, but writing with my own developed talent. This allowed me freedom for the vocation that I hankered for but kept me safe within the parampara.

I would like to thank you for not letting me fall in love with a woman and marrying her for life. You arranged an ISKCON marriage for me in 1968, but it was an unsuitable match, and so it was easy for you to release me from it when you gave me permission to take sannyasa in 1972, just a few years after my marriage. And apart from that ISKCON-arranged marriage, you saved me from ever falling in love with a woman in my youth and becoming captured in a marriage for life. And you saved me from becoming a gigolo or debauch who chases women. I somehow did not have what it took to chase after women, being too shy and reserved.

Although this may sound strange, I would like to thank you for some of the LSD trips I took in the early 1960s. Although they were destructive and risky, they did open me to the possibilities of a nonmaterial existence and consciousness expanded beyond the normal middle-class American outlook. Those trips, combined with reading Eastern literature such as the Upanisads and the Bhagavad-gita, prepared me for being open to you when I met you in 1966.

I am grateful to you that I was living in the Lower East Side of New York City in 1966 when you moved in to 26 2nd Avenue. Your storefront was a place that I passed daily on my way from the welfare office home to lunch, and so I could not miss it. The little sign in the window inviting us to classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday was sufficient to lure me in, and the rest was history.

I want to thank you for allowing me to join you at the very beginning of your mission. I was really able to come in on the ground floor of the movement and be given opportunities for leadership and responsibility. By your purity and charisma, I became very obedient and faithful to you. In return, you reciprocated with me and trusted me and gave me posts of responsibility, such as the first secretary of ISKCON and temple president in Boston.

This giving of responsibility continued throughout my career in ISKCON. You sent me to Boston to be temple president, awarded me sannyasa in 1972 and placed me as one of the original members of the Governing Body Commission. There were so many more qualified people present, but you chose me for these posts, and the austerity of trying to fulfill them helped me advance very much in Krishna consciousness. I am also thankful that during my years on the GBC, you allowed me to take many expanded posts as GBC secretary for various areas of the world.

I am grateful that when a vacancy became open in the editorship of Back to Godhead magazine, you accepted my volunteering to take over as editor. You then allowed me to publish many articles and essays in Back to Godhead magazine. Many times you praised them.

I’m grateful that I was introduced to India in your company. I first went to join you in 1973 to spend a month as a representative GBC to accompany you. You took care of me and sheltered me from the culture shock of India. It was wonderful being with you in that atmosphere. I could not have had a better introduction. I then went again with you when you gave me the great honor of calling me to be your personal servant in 1974. I traveled with you to Hawaii, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and then to India—Vrndavana, Bombay and Calcutta. During this time, you let me type letters for you and cook for you and massage you daily. I traveled around the world with you, sometimes being your only companion. Eventually it became too intense for me to be your servant, and I wanted to serve more independently. At first you did not let me go, but then you let me go to do another service, which you came to value very much.

I want to thank you for this tolerance on this part so that I did not commit an offense. I became the leader of the brahmacari library party and traveled throughout the United States, placing books in universities. You repeatedly praised and respected this work as being very important. I am grateful that you chose me as one of eleven persons to be initiating gurus and initiate on your behalf during your presence when you were too ill to initiate anymore. I considered it a great honor to be chosen out of dozens of likely leaders. You really touched my heart by singling me out.

I am grateful that I was present for your disappearance from this earth. Several times during 1977 when you were very ill, I came to be with you in India and was finally there with you in your very last days, including the last day, when I stood by your bedside all day and witnessed your auspicious disappearance from the body. I’m grateful that you made suggestions that I should be the one to write your biography and that this was unanimously approved by the GBC. I completed it in five years with a team of devotees. It has become a successful biography, translated and read second only to your own books, helping to influence people to come to Krishna consciousness.

These statements of gratitude may sound like self-praises on my part, but I need to be specific in thanking you for the things you have given me to show that you have showered success on my career. I do not count it as credit for my own prowess but as favors from you, which you began at the very beginning of our relationship, when you gave me the assignment to post the titles of the lectures you would give on the sign board on the window at 26 2nd Avenue.

I’ve made mistakes in your service, especially after your disappearance. I was part of a GBC “conspiracy” that kept only eleven persons as gurus for nine years and arranged that our Godbrothers should look up to us as their guru. I also had a disastrous falldown in the early years of 2000s, for which I was reprimanded by the GBC and for which my reputation has suffered seriously. But I believe you have forgiven me for these indiscretions, and I am grateful for your forgiveness. Again, I have written too much here, so I will bring it to an end. But thank you for all the things I have not mentioned and for all things you are continuing to give me now and in the future in my attempt to make spiritual progress under your direction.

from the yellow submarine, my bhajana kutir #79→

1964 May 23: "I shall request you with all humility to cooperate with this mission. I am requesting you to give me at least ten members from Agra as you have already given one yesterday and I am thanking you once more."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1947-64

1966 May 23:
"Chaturthi. In the evening there was meeting the contribution was $8.00. The attendance was about eleven ladies and gentlemen."
Prabhupada Journal :: 1966

1968 May 23: "I have seen one copy and it is not good. Please stop circulation of this book, which is not authorized. Any book written by unauthorized persons should not be indulged in."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1968

1969 May 23: "So far as my starting a separate organization, it was inevitable because none of our godbrothers are cooperating. If it is now possible to combine ourselves together, I shall be the first man to welcome this good opportunity."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1969

1970 May 23: "My Dear Bhaiji Hanumanprasada Poddar, as you have asked for my suggestion, formulate a scheme so that our Indian brothers may join this Movement and send many preachers all over the world."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1970 May 23: "Krsna Consciousness philosophy is now tested by my last three years' experiment and this philosophy will be accepted in any part of the world irrespective of caste, creed, color, and language."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1972 May 23: "Unless there is connection with a bona fide Spiritual Master there is no possibility of making progress in spiritual life. So I have established ISKCON centers for intimate connection with the bona fide Spiritual Master."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972

1972 May 23: "We may say "Krishna wills this." Actually outside of our bona fide Krishna Consciousness centers, there is no possibility of finding out what Krishna does or does not want."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972

Baltimore’s Mayor, Sheila Dixon, has named May 30, 2009 as “Hare Krishna Ratha Yatra Day” in a glowing proclamation. “The City of Baltimore celebrates its diverse community and has respect for all groups who have chosen to make this city their home,” writes the Mayor in the official document.

On May 18, ISKCON News Weekly received a distraught message from an obviously emotional monk at ISKCON’s Nandankanan Sri Sri Gour Nitai Ashram in Chittagong, the main seaport of Bangladesh. On May 14 at 3pm, the devotee said, he and his peers were busy preparing for a weekend festival when fifty to sixty terrorists burst into the temple, brandishing knives and iron bars.

1964 May 23: "I shall request you with all humility to cooperate with this mission. I am requesting you to give me at least ten members from Agra as you have already given one yesterday and I am thanking you once more."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1947-64

1966 May 23:
"Chaturthi. In the evening there was meeting the contribution was $8.00. The attendance was about eleven ladies and gentlemen."
Prabhupada Journal :: 1966

1968 May 23: "I have seen one copy and it is not good. Please stop circulation of this book, which is not authorized. Any book written by unauthorized persons should not be indulged in."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1968

1969 May 23: "So far as my starting a separate organization, it was inevitable because none of our godbrothers are cooperating. If it is now possible to combine ourselves together, I shall be the first man to welcome this good opportunity."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1969

1970 May 23: "My Dear Bhaiji Hanumanprasada Poddar, as you have asked for my suggestion, formulate a scheme so that our Indian brothers may join this Movement and send many preachers all over the world."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1970 May 23: "Krsna Consciousness philosophy is now tested by my last three years' experiment and this philosophy will be accepted in any part of the world irrespective of caste, creed, color, and language."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1972 May 23: "We may say "Krishna wills this." Actually outside of our bona fide Krishna Consciousness centers, there is no possibility of finding out what Krishna does or does not want."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972

1972 May 23: "Unless there is connection with a bona fide Spiritual Master there is no possibility of making progress in spiritual life. So I have established ISKCON centers for intimate connection with the bona fide Spiritual Master."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972

Here's the latest experiment from the Lounge.

It should represent an evolution beyond last week's recording.

I'm listening to a mix of it and now, and I know what's really bothering me - the cartals are totally out of tune with the kirtan melody, which is in D major.

Anyway, nothing can be done about that now, but next time we totally have to check that first. They are also in the Room mic. They should be sweetly tuned to the melody and right up front in the mix, which means they need their own mic. I think also that they shouldn't just play chik chik ching for 10 minutes - it kind of desensitizes you to them. On the plus side, Prema Yogi's excellent technique means that the cartals don't kill the vocal chorus coming through the room mic.

Here's the setup:

1. Guitar. Behringer C2 (condenser). Krishnapada played guitar.
2. Vocal. Shure SM58 (dynamic). That was me singing, and I used a dynamic mic because I need the isolation to get the T-pain effect happening.
3. Bass. DI. Dominic played bass, and ran it through one of his hardware compressors. It sounds so much better than last week.
4. Tabla top end. Shure SM57. Arjuna rocked up and played Param Satya's tablas.
5. Tabla bottom end. AKG D770 - a supercardioid dynamic mic.
6. Room Mic Left. The trusty Sony ECM-MS987 stereo condenser through the Sony MZ-R50, with its built-in compressor running.
7. Harmonium. Behringer C2 (condenser). Vrajadhama played harmonium and I focused on singing and monitoring the levels.
8. Room Mic Right.

This is the mic position we used for the harmonium this week. [Check out my article on miking up harmoniums here]. I chose this one because we used a condenser this week rather than a dynamic. Last week's position is too hot for a condenser, which is way more sensitive than a dynamic microphone. I used a condenser because I was using the dynamics for the tabla (two of them) and the lead vocal. This week the condenser was closer to the harmonium than this photo, and I think this is the cause of the bumping sounds you can hear at the very beginning of the track, before the lead vocal kicks in.

Arjuna on tabla

Dominic came by and played bass. He also lent me two of his Bobby Owsinski [website] Audio Engineering books while he's in Poland for the next six months with H.H. Indradyumna Swami's Festival of India

Vrajadhama on harmonium, Krishnapada on guitar, and Prema Yogi, facing away from the camera, on cartals. Note the mic on the harmonium.

We had already recorded it once, but then a whole swag of people showed up for Prema's Gita discussion group, so we press ganged them into singing chorus and clapping.

The kirtan we arranged as we went. The A and B parts are standard. The C part is something I came up with. The structure is A-B-A-B-C, then we go into double time and keep the chorus going while I bust out a qawwali inspired section that just begged for the T-pain effect love, so I gave it a generous helping. Then we just kind of winged it to close.

Nothing clipped badly this time round.

In the qawwali section at one point it sounds like there is a chorus on my voice - that's caused by me singing so loud that it goes into several mics - all at different distances, and hence time delays, causing a chorusing effect.

It was really great to record with such good musicians and enthusiastic chanters.

I'm so-so on my vocal performance. It's not unexpected considering how much practice I've been doing lately (none). There would be two ways to improve it - #1 sing more each day, especially doing specific exercises. At the moment I'm putting a lot of energy and effort into engineering, and also some into drumming, to work on my timing. Bass and voice are queued behind that at the moment.

The second way would be to do multiple takes - in other words, a track-by-track recording rather than a live session. I discussed it with Dominic, and one idea we had is to do a live recording, then replace each track one at a time with single track takes. This way you end up with a "live kirtan" which has been completely redone with overdubs with perfect isolation.

That might be a way to get the best of both worlds.

OK, this is a rough mix, and I haven't had a chance to listen to it on the car stereo or my iPod headphones (I think the bottom end of the tabla might be too loud), but here you go:

• 23 May - Sitapati - Take 2 - Mix 1 (mp3, 18MB, 12:58)

And I have to say that my new work flow is a lot more streamlined. It took me two weeks to mix the Christmas kirtans. This took me two hours. I recorded it on the Boss BR-1600CD, which is a good mobile workhorse - reliable and resilient; dumped it via USB during dinner; and then mixed it in Logic Pro.

Thursday, May 7, Alachua, Florida -- I settled down on my narrow bunk, people around me stacked in three tiers like immigrants in a Chinese city and beginning to snore. It wasn’t a five-star hotel, but ISKCON Youth Ministry’s Krishna Culture Festival Tour bus was definitely the way to travel. Soon the hum of the road would send me to sleep, and save for a bit of tossing and turning, I’d stay that way for at least half of our sixteen-hour journey.

ISKCON Juhu celebrated an historical event on 17 May 2009 when the presiding Deities Sri Sri Radha Rasabihari along with Sri Sri Garu Nitai and Sri Sri Sita Rama Laxman Hanuman were anointed with chandan for the first time ever since Their installation by Srila Prabhupada in the seventies.

Star Trek, the franchise that never dies, has, like the vampire, returned among us, this time in a clever “prequel” to the original ’60s space opera TV series. In this, the eleventh of the series-spawned feature films, Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the other starship Enterprise voyagers appear as “sexy young cadets,” as David Hajdu describes them in his illuminating op-ed piece on the “Star Trek” phenomenon in last Sunday’s Times.

Throughout history many traditional societies have centered on a particular animal, and the relations the people develop with that animal influence the values of the whole society. We think of the role of buffalo in shaping the lives and values of the Native Americans of the Plains. Similarly, we think of the Laplanders and their reindeer, or even the New England whaling villagers and the whales.

The ISKCON Studies Institute is pleased to invite you to the second ISKCON Studies Conference, "The Guru: Person, Position, Possibilities", to be held at Villa Vrindavan, near Florence, Italy, from 3-6 July 2009. The Conference is a forum for presentations of research and open discussion among the participants.

Live 24-hour Kirtan this weekend on www.iskconlife.tv There is going to be a really GREAT 24-hour kirtan broadcast from ISKCON Birmingham this weekend. Hear live kirtans from HH Sacinandana Swami, HG Pankajangri Prabhu, HG Madhava Prabhu, Aindra prabhu's Vrindavan group (Govinda, Gopal and Varun Prabhu's), The USA Mayapuri's (Visvambara, Bali, Kish and Akinchan Krishna Prabhu's), and leading devotees from around the UK.

If the selection above is hosted by YouTube then after the video plays there will be several links presented to other videos. ISKCON News Weekly has no control over the selections presented and is not responsible for their contents.

If the selection above is hosted by YouTube then after the video plays there will be several links presented to other videos. ISKCON News Weekly has no control over the selections presented and is not responsible for their contents.

If the selection above is hosted by YouTube then after the video plays there will be several links presented to other videos. ISKCON News Weekly has no control over the selections presented and is not responsible for their contents.

On the bouncy play platform outside Ghent's 15th century slaughterhouse, the banana was thumping the beefsteak. The two boys battled in the drizzle yesterday, the one in the fruity yellow costume serving up another veggie victory over his rival in bloody scarlet. The parent onlookers laughed and munched another soya fritter.

Meditation has been practiced for centuries, as a way to calm the soul and bring about inner peace. According to a new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, there is now evidence that a specific method of meditation may temporarily boost our visuospatial abilities (for example, the ability to retain an image in visual memory for a long time). That is, the meditation allows practitioners to access a heightened state of visual-spatial awareness that lasts for a limited period of time.

Srila Prabhupada once pointed out in a lecture that brahmanas (as teachers) used to work for free, that the relationship with their students was one of love. He said, "Just like in our institution, I am your teacher, but there is no such contract that you have to pay me. But you pay me more than anything." (May 27, 1972, Los Angeles, Srimad Bhagavatam 7.5.22-34).

Indradyumna maharaja Vyasa puja celebration in Tel Aviv temple (2009)

Salem, Massachusetts, USA - Salem and North Shore residents may be heading into summer and looking forward to some much-anticipated beach weather, but Salem Vegan Society’s director has his sights set on Thanksgiving 2009. SVS Founder/Director Marc Delaney, now in the process of preparing for the fourth annual Salem Vegan Food Drive to benefit the Salem Mission this June, has just received a special vegan product donation from Vegan Food Drive corporate sponsor Turtle Island Foods, the makers of the vegan turkey-alternative product, Tofurky.

To some degree we all possess a certain craving for excitement or for experiences beyond the normal. Some of us feel enlivened taking risks of some kind whilst others simply strive to extend themselves beyond their comfort zones. Indeed, an adventurous spirit is considered by many to be a fundamental principle of life itself. Of course, we all have our own individual ventures and challenges and it is these very endeavors which can promote our growth and development.

Some people travel the world experiencing diversities in culture, sight and sound whereas for others sitting on the ocean floor forty meters under, surrounded by countless hungry sharks may be adventure. Some may penetrate deep into submerged caves with only a thin rope and limited compressed air as a life line to the surface. For others it may be the rush of free-falling from thousands of meters in the air or climbing forbidden peaks and mountains in exotic worlds. Then there are those who may hitch-hike across the unforgiving expanse of the Sahara desert or navigate the open ocean with its unpredictable elements, in only a teacup of a vessel. All of these different adventures often give one a profound sense of being alive and youthful. In fact for many, the need to challenge or even cheat death is required in order to feel truly alive.

From a deeper level of our existence though, we may not find such a continuous deep fulfillment through all our active pursuits. For most of the above adventures one may be searching for a certain sensation or rush of adrenaline to heighten the experience. From such a fix ones senses are enlivened giving the feeling of enhanced awareness. In this position one either faces or flees from his fears. However, we find that repeating the same activity several times reduces such a sensation as one becomes more accustomed to the situation. The initial rush of uncertainty is no longer felt as one becomes more familiar and even habituated or "natural" in their pursuit. Ever increasing challenges are required in order to access the fix we so eagerly yearn for. Even this exhilarating rush is itself relatively short lived due to the temporary nature of such activities. Through our temporary and limited body we can only experience temporary and limited happiness.

Bhagavad Gita explains that by nature we are the spirit soul, or pure consciousness. Being an individual living force beyond this temporary vehicle of our body, we possess an eternal nature and an eternal thirst for adventure. Also, this adventure, which alone can actually touch our real nature, is of a more refined quality. External activities may appear to be the same, but internally one's consciousness is of a different state.

The mind is the hub of our senses being the relay station for information coming in and of our subsequent interaction with the world. However, our minds are often our worst enemies if left uncontrolled. Therefore yoga aims at controlling the mind. This is the greatest challenge and adventure we could ever take. We have six formidable enemies who are enacting a fierce battle within our very hearts. Our pure consciousness is constantly assailed by these adversaries of lust, greed, anger, pride, illusion and envy. In fact our entire society today is founded on these hostile principles. A truly adventurous person is one who will stand up against these enemies and live for higher values. Through mantra meditation we can reawaken our pure identity and achieve victory in the battle. We then understand what is real adventure. However, meditation is not easy. Every session we enter the battlefield of our mind, combating against the missiles of negativity and laziness. To completely absorb our disobliging minds in the pure spiritual vibration of Krishna's names is an endeavor unmatched in this world. It is a gargantuan task as we have become so conditioned to materialism and ignorant of our real identity, becoming slaves to our enemies.

However, when we reconnect with our eternal relationship with Krishna through chanting his names, we reconnect with real adventure. Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita that he is that very principle of excitement or adventure which we are all seeking. Krishna is the absolute truth or the supreme original consciousness, and from him all else emanates. Therefore he is the source of all thrills and pleasures. By chanting Krishna's names we obtain the power to control our minds. By chanting we also obtain positive realization of Krishna and of the plane of pure consciousness, a spiritual dimension of never ending adventure. All activity there is of an ever-fresh nature, is if done for the first time. Each time one meets Krishna, one tastes the flavour of fresh newborn love and joy. Familiarity and boredom are unknown as one experiences ever increasing excitement and bliss. There is no limit to the unlimited. Krishna is unlimited and by knowing him we can do more than simply cheat death, we will actually conquer death, and become completely fearless.

One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode. Bhagavad Gita 4.9

The real spirit of adventure is the adventure of the spirit.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

Every Town and Village is our ongoing attempt to fulfil the instruction of Caitanya Mahaprabhu to chant the Holy Name in every town and village. Our definition of a "town or village" is a suburb with a distinct postcode. Since 2007 we have chanted in more than 50 of Brisbane's 150 postcodes. You can read more reports here

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Where: Long St E & Tweedale St, Graceville
When: 2pm, Sunday May 24, 2009

Afterwards we are doing kirtan with H.H. Prabhavishnu Swami at the Graceville temple, from 5 pm.

I’ve been slowly working my way through the archive of morning classes recorded at Bhaktivadanta Manor (London), The total stands at 9 available. Please see below the links to the morning class given by HH Jayadvaita Swami: HH Jayadvaita Swami (class1) HH Jayadvaita Swami (class 2) I’ve enjoyed listening to the archive’s and initially thought it would not be [...]

Our Founder-Acharya, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta. has stated that the entire world will become Krishna conscious, and he has also stated that it is impossible for this to happen. So how are we to relate to this apparent contradiction? From a material point of view it is indeed unthinkable that in the midst of the Kali Yuga the entire world can...

T-pain in da house!

Thanks to Vraj for tracking this down.

Salem and North Shore residents may be heading into summer and looking forward to some much-anticipated beach weather, but Salem Vegan Society’s director has his sights set on Thanksgiving 2009.

SVS Founder/Director Marc Delaney, now in the process of preparing for the fourth annual Salem Vegan Food Drive to benefit the Salem Mission this June, has just received a special vegan product donation from Vegan Food Drive corporate sponsor Turtle Island Foods, the makers of the vegan turkey-alternative product, Tofurky.

Turtle Island, currently the leading vegan turkey-alternative producer in the United States and a vegan company itself, has agreed to sponsor this year’s Food Drive, and has provided Delaney and Salem Vegan Society with over $200 in Tofurky product vouchers, which may be redeemed at any time throughout 2009.

Recognizing the appropriateness of this donation, given the numerous Salem Mission Thanksgiving dinners served to the homeless each November, but favoring Tofurky’s vegan “alternative” ingredients, Delaney is now considering retaining Turtle Island Food’s product vouchers for now, and presenting the actual vegan Tofurkys to Salem Mission’s kitchen manager in November, to coincide with the Salem Mission’s annual Thanksgiving dinners.

Delaney has informed Salem Mission staff member Jennifer Pieroni and Mission Director Mark Cote about his projected plans for this very special donation to this year’s Salem Vegan Food Drive, and has been informed by Pieroni, acting as this year’s contact for the Food Drive, that the Mission’s kitchen manager will in fact be able to accommodate and prepare the alternative-meat product donations this November.

Delaney said: “According to a University of Illinois fact sheet, in 2007, 271,685,000 turkeys were produced in the United States. Turkey consumption has increased by 116-percent since 1970, that’s a 300-percent increase.

“In 2007, the average American consumed 17.5 pounds of turkey, and 97-percent of Americans surveyed by the National Turkey Federation reported that they eat turkey at Thanksgiving.

“And these figures just reflect the United States, not the world. These numbers are staggering, considering that each turkey “produced,” or raised, is a thinking, sentient being, that should in fact have rights of their own, to live out their lives as they choose, on free-range land or sanctuary.

“Today, animals have virtually no rights. This is the main purpose behind the annual Salem Vegan Food Drive, to provide good, wholesome, vegan food for Salem Mission residents, but also to remind those more fortunate among us here in Salem and on the North Shore that consuming turkey and other animal products is not necessary, that all of us can live happy, healthy lives consuming an entirely vegan diet.”

One local supplier of Tofurky is Whole Foods Market in Swampscott, and Delaney says that he will work with Whole Foods to obtain the Tofurkys that will be donated this year to the Salem Mission.

This year’s 4th annual Salem Vegan Food Drive officially launches for 2009 on June 1, but anyone may donate now online via Facebook Causes and their Network for Good application.

Donors can use their Visa or MasterCard to quickly and securely donate online via Facebook, with their donation sent electronically directly to the Salem Mission. Those donations, earmarked as Salem Vegan Food Drive donations, will be reserved for the purchase of vegan food, and will automatically enter them into this year’s Vegan Food Drive Raffle.

Anyone may also donate by check for any amount made payable to the Salem Vegan Society, and sent to SVS Vegan Food Drive, PO Box 283, Salem MA 01970.

This year, Salem Vegan Society will also be represented at Salem’s annual Living Green and Renewable Energy Fair on June 13, 10 am to 3 pm, at Salem’s Old Town Hall.

Delaney and other SVS members invite residents of Salem and North Shore communities to visit the Living Green Fair and to stop by the Salem Vegan Society table, where they can donate with cash or check to the Food Drive, and also be automatically entered into this year’s Vegan Food Drive Raffle for a chance to win one of three prizes being offered this year.

Everyone is encouraged to visit the Salem Vegan Society website to find out more about this year’s Salem Vegan Food Drive.

Contact:
Marc Delaney
Founder/Director
Salem Vegan Society
PO Box 283
Salem MA 01970
Voice Mail: 978.745.3314

###

Contact Information

Salem Vegan Society Marc Delaney 978-745-3314 info@salemvegan.org http://www.salemvegan.org Taken From:http://www.pr.com/press-release/153582

Tagged: Salem Vegan Society, Turkey, vegan

"It is best to sit erect and enunciate the names and hear them stream from your lips and teeth. Have confidence that everything will follow from that. Prabhupada occasionally made remarks that we could think of Radha’s and Krishna’a pastimes while chanting. But his main emphasis was “just hear.” Hear with attention and await for the higher revelations to come. Be humble, and the stages of seeing Krishna, meditating on His loving exchanges with Radha, thinking of His qualities, and hearing with ecstasy will naturally come."

From Bhajana Kutir #79

A review of H.H. Radhanath Swami's autobiographical account The Journey Home: Autobiography of a American Swami by Catholic scholar Francis X Clooney [Harvard Bio Page]:

There is much to be said about Christ and Krishna, of course; books on the topic have been written for centuries, and this book does not resolve the theological questions that arise when two great monotheistic traditions meet; we who are Christian still have tough questions to ask (ourselves in particular). But it should help us all to hear each other’s stories, how God was found, how God finds us when we are young and keeps after us for a lifetime. We should imagine a kind of dialogue — not of religions or theologies this time — but of women and men of different traditions who, upon reaching a certain age, tell their stories with a certain wisdom and humor and in that way speak to one another across religious boundaries.

- A Hare Krishna Swami Tells All

Apron-clad, mild-mannered cookery teacher by day, Kurma slips into something more comfortable at night, as hidden cameras recently reveal: leading a group kirtan (chanting) session at North Sydney's Hare Krishna Temple.

Last weekend was spent teaching on two of the Southern Hemisphere's most extensive university complexes: La Trobe.

Here's a glimpse of our first class at the Lifeskills Cafe, on La Trobe's Bundoora Campus, a couple hours drive out of Melbourne:

Our crew are poised to leap down from the tabletops and indulge in our 4-hour cookery extravaganza.

Cheesemaking, as usual, played an important part of our workshop.

"Unhomogenised milk always makes the best cheese", says Kurma. "Notice how the cheese is firm yet still juicy. A heavy fifteen minute pressing is all it takes for the perfect textured cheese".

Our mission, should we choose to accept it: to cut the cheese into juicy cubes and fry it in fresh ghee, fold it through aromatic fresh tomatoes and green peas to produce the famous matar panir.

Next day we did it all again, at Cafe Flavours on the Bendigo Campus

Together, under the banner of “Classics from the Subcontinent”, we again prepared from scratch the following delicious dishes:

Sweet & Sour Toor Dal Soup with Vegetables Moghul-style Cumin-flavoured Rice (Jeera Pulao) Punjabi-style Tomatoes, Peas and Home-made Curd Cheese (Matar Panir) Gujarati Fenugreek-scented Pumpkin Curry Mixed Vegetables in Creamy Gujarati-style Karhi Sauce North Indian Puffed Fried Breads (Poories) Hot, Sweet, Spicy & Sour Eggplant Pickles Fresh herb-laced Garden Salad Saffron Semolina Halava Pudding with Flaked Almonds & Cardamom

The professional kitchen at Bendigo lent itself favourably to some serious 'mis-en-place'.

Not bull-fighting but rather demonstrating the correct type of muslin cloth for the cheesemaking.

We prepared some of the tastiest and most crisp poories ever tasted at a cookery class.

Half atta flour and half high-protein bread-making plain flour with sufficient salt is just one important part of the poori success equation.

Crisp, soft, and ready to tear into bite-sized morsels to scoop up the fragrant, juicy combination of another batch of warm, meaty panir, green peas and tomatoes, all scented with fresh mint, fennel, coriander, ginger, chili, cumin and garam masala.

Always at your service.

Srimad Bhagavatam 11.8.36 - Pride, envy, lust and greed are symptoms of attachment to the material body and its insatiable senses.

I've become a big fan of Chris Hedges, here are some quotes from his book "When Atheism become Religion: Americas New Fundamentalists." Here are few passages that I highlighted in my reading of the book a couple of months ago. Rereading the book recently has reminded me how spot on he was on so many of the issues.

"The secular utopians, like Christian Fundamentalists, are stunted products of a self-satisfied, materialistic middle class. They seek in their philosophical systems a moral justification for their own comfort, self-absorption, and power. They do not question the imperial projects of the nation, globalization or the vast disparities in wealth and security between themselves, as members of the world's industrialized elite, and the rest of the human race."

"An atheist who accept an irredeemable and flawed human nature, as well as a morally neutral universe, who does not think the world can be perfected by human beings, who is not steeped in cultural arrogance and feelings of superiority, who rejects the violent imperial projects under way in the middle east, is intellectually honest. . .They hold an honored place in the pluralistic an diverse human community. . .Atheists, including those who brought us the Enlightenment, have often been a beneficial force in the history of human though and religion. They have forced societies to examine empty religious platitudes and hollow religious concepts. They have courageously challenged the moral hypocrisy of religious institutions. the humanistic values of the enlightenment were a response to the abuses by organized religion, including the attempt by religious authorities to stifle intellectual and scientific freedom. Religious authorities bought off by the elite, championed a dogmatism that sanctified the privileges and power of the ruling class. But there were always religious figures who defied their own. Many, such as Baruch Spinoza, were branded as heretics and atheists."

"The pain of living has also turned honest and compassionate men an women against God. These atheists do not believe in the collective moral progress or science and reason as our ticket to salvation. They are not trying to perfect the human race. Rather, they cannot reconcile human suffering with the concept of God. This is an honest struggle. this disbelief is a form of despair, not self-exultation."

"Because there is no clear, objective definition of God, the new atheists must choose what God it is they attack. Is it the god of the mystics, the followers of the Social Gospel, the eighteenth-century deists, the Quakers, the liberation theologians, or the stern God of the patriarchs? Are they at war with Thomas Aquinas or John Calvin or Mohandas Gandhi or Thomas Merton or Paul Tillich? These are not questions these atheists answer. They attack a religious belief of their own creation. The blame religion for the worst of human depravity, superstition and ignorance, and call 0on us to discard it. . . And once we free ourselves from religion we will be able to march forward as a species to their sunlit utopia. This is a simplistic utopian vision of human advancement share by all fundamentalists. . ."

"The blustering televangelists, and the atheists who rant about the evils of religion, are little more than carnival barkers. They are in show business, and those in show business know complexity does not sell, they trade cliches and insults like cartoon characters. They don masks. One wears the mask of religion, the other wears the mask of science. they banter back and forth in predictable sound bites. They promise, like all advertisers, simple and seductive dreams, this debate engages two bizarre subsets who are well suited to the television culture because of the crudeness of their arguments. One distorts the scientific theory of evolution to explain the behavior and rules for complex social, economic and political systems. the other insists that the six-day story of creation in Genesis is fact and Jesus will descend from the sky to create the kingdom of God on Earth. These antagonists each claim to have discovered an absolute truth. They trade absurdity for absurdity. They show that the danger is not religion or science. The danger is fundamentalism."

"The new atheists, who attack a repugnant version of religion use it to condemn all religion. they use it to deny the reality and importance of the religious impulse. they are curiously unable to comprehend those who found through their religious convictions the strength to stand up against injustice. Hitchens writes of Martin Luther King Jr. that 'in no real as opposed to nominal sense, then, was he a Christian.' He disparages the faith of Abraham Lincoln an assures us that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whom the Nazis put to death for resistance, was the product of a religious belief that had 'mutated into an admirable but nebulous humanism.' He declares Gandhi an obscurantist who distorted and retarded Indian independence, an calls the Dalai Lama a medieval princeling who is the continuation of a parasitic monastic elite. All those religious figures who found the courage to live the moral life must be maligned and dismissed as not authentically religious. Their presence speaks of another kind of religion, one these atheists do not comprehend."

"'The core belief in progress is that human values and goals converge in parallel with our increasing knowledge,' the British Philosopher John Gray wrote. 'The twentieth century shows the contrary. Human beings use the power of scientific knowledge to assert and defend the values and goals they already have. New technologies can be used to alleviate suffering and enhance freedom. They can, and will also be used to wage war and strengthen tyranny. Science made possible the technologies that powered the industrial revolution. In the twentieth century, these technologies were used to implement state terror and genocide on an unprecedented scale. Ethics and politics do not advance in line with the growth of knowledge-not even in the long run.'"

"The atheists and the Christian radicals who cling to this warped vi son of our goodness, nobility, and self-appointed role as the saviors of civilization, urge us forward into imperial projects that are as foolish as the are suicidal."

"Dawkins sees no moral worth in religious faith, just as Christian fundamentalists see no moral worth in those who do not accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior. The millions of human beings who over the ages struggled to live lives of compassion and fought for justice under a religious or secular banner are blithely erased from moral consideration. It no longer matter what people do with their lives, but what they believe. Dawkins, like Christian zealots, reduces the world to a binary formula of good and evil."

"It is impossible to formulate a moral code out of reason and science. As the realm of fact rather than value, science is notoriously unable to generate a basis for moral behavior. Neither science nor reason calls on us to love our neighbor as ourselves, to forgive our enemies, or to sacrifice for the weak, the infirm, and the poor."

"Those who place their faith in a purely rational existence begin from the premise that human being can have a fixed and determined selves governed by reason and knowledge. This is itself an act of faith. . . We can rationalize our actions later, but this does not make them rational. . .We are assaulted with about 14 million bit of information per second. The bandwidth of consciousness is around 18 bits per second. We have conscious access to about a millionth of the information we use to function in life. . .To accept the intractable and irrational forces that drive us, to admit that these forces are as entrenched in us as in all human beings, is to relinquish the fantasy that the human species can have total control over human destiny. It is to accept our limitations, to live with the confines of human nature. Ethical, moral religious, and political systems that do not concede these stark limitations have nothing to say to us. The new atheists, like all Utopians, ask us to live unexamined live, to believe we can conquer our humanness. Knowledge is not wisdom. Knowledge is the domain of scientific inquiry. Wisdom goes beyond self-awareness. It permits us to reinterpret the rational and the non-rational. It is both intellectual and intuitive. And those who remain trapped within the confines of knowledge and pedantry do not commune with the larger world. They cannot see or speak to the deeper truths of life."

"The passages of most sacred texts in all religions are of little real importance. Believers pick and choose what fits. They discard the rest. . .Christian fundamentalists, who seek a justification for their bigotry and hatred, trumpet these passages and rarely speak of the Sermon on the Mount, Christ's call for vows of poverty and His pacificism. Such selective interpretation is no different for Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and other believers. It is culture, history, circumstance, tradition, economics and the deep self-interest of the tribe or the nation that more powerfully inform belief systems than the contradictory and often impenetrable pages of the Bible, Koran or any other sacred text. Attempts by these atheists to reduce sacred texts to instructions manuals is not part of the reality of belief. Faith arises out of practice. We find our faith in how we live. The labels we attach to ourselves-Christian, Buddhist, Jew, Muslim or Atheist-are a way to tell stories about ourselves, to create coherent narratives."

"The danger we face does not come from religion. It comes from a growing intellectual bankruptcy that is one of the symptoms of a dying culture. . .We sit for hours alone in front of screens. We are enraptured and diverted by bread and circuses. And while we sit mesmerized, corporations steadily dismantle the democratic state. We are kept ignorant and entertained. . .We increasingly lack the intellectual and self-critical tools to disentangle this net of lies from truth. . .'our politics, religion, news, athletics, education, and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice,' wrote Neil Postman. 'The result is that we are a people on the verge of entertaining ourselves to death.' . . .The new atheists are products of the morally stunted world of entertainment. Despite their insistence that they have cornered the market on rationality, they appeal neither to our reason nor our intellect. . .The simple slogans these atheists repeat about religion do not communicate ideas. They amuse us. They bolster our self-satisfaction, anti-intellectualism and provincialism."

"Many who live the United States, plagued by its consumer culture, waste their energy attempting to satisfy the insatiable demands of an all-consuming self. People have become cut off, engulfed in the fruitless search to find an unachievable happiness in the things they accumulate, the experiences an products they are sold, or the careers they have built. The promised self-fulfillment, of-course, never arrives. Consumers are prodded wit even greater urgency to seek solace in newer products, greater opulence an increased status. the frantic search for happiness is endless, 'since' as Proust wrote, 'what one has obtained in ever anyting but a new starting-point for further desires.' . . .American democracy has become a consumer fraud. those who practice these techniques are manipulative an cynical. They have robbed us of art, of democratic rights, of education, of respect for the world around us, of the sacred, and they have left us sputtering to each other in the simplified language of television. Television has given us a new image based epistemology. It now subtly defines what is true. It determines what constitutes knowledge. It tells us what is real and unreal. . .The danger we face is not an Orwellian 1984 style dictatorship, but Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, where we waste our lives in the vain and impossible pursuit of a self-centered, universal happiness. . .Television tempts viewers with the opulent life enjoyed by the American oligarchy, one percent of who control more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined. Characters on television live in sprawling and artfully decorated lofts and multi-million dollar homes. They flit from high priced luncheons to lavish galas, where they can parade their sculpted bodies in extravagant designer suits and gowns. this is the life we are supposed to admire and emulate. This is the life, we are told, we can all have. Our national obsession with wealth, celebrity an power has become a soul crushing disease. . .in the middle ages people were manipulated and informed by stained glass images and graphic paintings of religious suffering and redemption. We, too, are hostage to images. We are inundated with pictures of excess wealth and consumption. The in the Middle Ages genuflected before the awful authority and majesty of the church. They feared the wrath of God. We genuflect before celebrity, prizes, money and status, held out like bait. Profligate consumption is not only desirable, but also the only life that offers worth an meaning. These images, however, implicity mock the lives of nearly all Americas. They foster impossible aspiration, ones that nearly all of us will never achieve. The mass of citizens who do not become wealthy and powerful, who buy Tom Ford's products but never become him, harbor feelings of failure and worthlessness. The incessant chasing after status and wealth has plunged much of the country into unmanageable debt. Families live in oversized houses with palladium windows, financed with mortgages they cannot repay. they seek identity through their Nike shoes or Coach handbags. They occupy their leisure time in malls buying things they do not need. they spend their weekdays in little cubicles, if they have stable jobs, under the heel of corporations who have disempowered the American worker, taken control of the state, and can lay them off on a whim. It is a desperate scramble. No one wants to be left behind. The epistemology of television has left of ignorant, without the vocabulary to express this awful transformation. . .The contemporary atheists, while many are noted scientists, are deluded products of this image-based and culturally illiterate world. they speak about religion, human progress and meaning in the impoverished language of television slogans. They play to our fears, especially of what we do not understand. Their words are sensational, fragmented and devoid of content. they appeal to our subliminal and irrational desires. They select a few facts and use them to dismiss historical, political an cultural realities. They tell us what we want to believe about ourselves. they assure us that we are good. They proclaim the violence employed in our name a virtue. they champion our ignorance as knowledge. they assure us that there is no reason to investigate other ways of being. Our way of life is the best they indulge us in our delusional dream of human perfectability. they tell us we will be saved by science and rationality. they tell us that humanity is moving inexorable forward. None of this is true. It defies human nature and human history. But it is what we want to believe. . .Religious thought is a guide to morality. It points humans toward inquiry. It seeks to unfettered the mind form prejudices that blunt reflection and self criticism. We are all flawed. Human ambitions and pursuits are vanity. the ancient Greeks held in high esteem the command they believed came from Apollo: 'Know thyself.' To know ourselves is to accept our limitations and imperfections. it is to reject absolutism. Ideas are not coded in DNA. They are fragile and need to be nurtured and protected. We are bound to this Earth by our common urges and our instincts, our capacity to be moral and immoral. It is when we face the intractable nature of our being that we begin to build a viable system of ethics. Utopian dreamers, lifting up impossible ideals, plunge us into depravity and violence. It is those who are broken, those who see the shifting sands of our inner lives and the fictive narratives we hide behind, who can save us. they speak to our common humanity. They appeal to our humility. They talk not of power but of transcendent. They talk of reverence. And in thier words we see the limits of reason and the possibilities of religion."

His new book, The Journey Home, was just reviewed by Francis X. Clooney S.J. in America: The National Catholic Weekly's.

"There is much to be said about Christ and Krishna, of course; books on the topic have been written for centuries, and this book does not resolve the theological questions that arise when two great monotheistic traditions meet; we who are Christian still have tough questions to ask (ourselves in particular). But it should help us all to hear each other’s stories, how God was found, how God finds us when we are young and keeps after us for a lifetime. We should imagine a kind of dialogue — not of religions or theologies this time — but of women and men of different traditions who, upon reaching a certain age, tell their stories with a certain wisdom and humor and in that way speak to one another across religious boundaries. In particular, Radhanath’s account invites us baby-boomers — readers of this blog included — to look a little deeper into how we found, lost, kept, gave away, were given (back) the faith — how we managed to find the 1960s a time of grace and wonder. For this invitation, we can all be grateful to Swami Radhanath. But judge for yourself; take a look at the book, see what you think."

From A Hare Krishna Swami Tells All by Francis X. Clooney S.J.

Sigh. Hare Krishna.

Last Friday we discovered that our cow, Krishna Priya, had a cut above one of her hooves. It looked a little strange in that it went about half-way around toward the outside. It seemed like maybe she cut it on a rock or something. I sprayed it with betadine and was tempted to apply my homemade herbal healing salve and wrap it, but on second though we decided to take the extra precaution and call the vet.

Being Friday afternoon, we didn’t know if the vet would actually show up due to other jobs. I expected him to call first, but he arrived without warning. I had wanted to round up Krishna Priya before he arrived, but she was standing near an ornamental cherry tree anyway, so it wasn’t too difficult to tie her to the tree.

She’s a feisty animal and wouldn’t let the vet get too close. He said that sedation was an option, and I replied that it would probably be necessary. I was instructed to pinch in her nostrils to distract her while he got her with the needle. She layed down in a few minutes.

The vet mentioned that sometimes a cut like this can happen when a rubber band gets stuck on their hoof, and when he reached into the wound he indeed found a large rubber o-ring in there. I don’t know where it came from, but I was really glad I called him and that he found it. If I had treated the wound myself without finding the o-ring, I think she would have gotten sick from an infection and possibly died. As it turned out, the vet applied some goop and a wrap, gave her an antibiotic shot, and then a shot to antidote the tranquilizer. It’ll take a few more weeks for the wound to heal, but Krishna Priya is doing much better, back to normal. The vet bill was $185.

I plan to upload some pictures soon.

—-
Then there’s the mrdanga ordeal. A few weeks ago I ordered two kids’ mrdangas from Krishna Culture. One was small, and the other smaller. I liked them so much that I wanted a big one for myself. I already had Balarama mrdanga, but these were a more Indian style that I liked. A 23-inch fiberglass drum arrived, but it had a few pieces missing from the gob. That’s the circular coating on the skin. I immediately reported the problem, and Krishna Culture offered a variety of solutions. I chose to try the larger clay drum as a replacement, and it arrived yesterday. I played it for about three minutes when a bass stroke broke through the skin. I was devastated. This beautiful drum was completely ruined.

I e-mailed Krishna Culture to tell them what happened, but I didn’t want to ask for a refund. They had already lost significant investment on the deal, and I tried to accept it as a loss. That’s not easy for me since I’m supporting a wife and five children on a modest government salary. I got a response from Krishna Culture today, and they’re again generously offering a variety of solutions, including a full refund. I think I’ll accept a partial refund.

I feel sorry about the whole ordeal, and I’m not sure what to do with a clay mrdanga with a broken skin. I woke up heartbroken this morning thinking about the drum. The folks at Krishna Culture have been great about all this, so go there and spend a little laksmi. They’ve got a lot of great stuff. www.krishnaculture.com

——

Also in the past few days I’ve been taking a lot of heat from devotees over e-mail. One PAMHO group that I’m subscribed to has had some very harshly critical writing against the rtvik groups lately. Since I looked into this issue last year I’ve found the rtviks’ side of the debase much stronger than the dominant view, so these anti-rtvik attacks really bother me. Even when I was taking the GBC’s position based on faith, I didn’t like seeing the fights between the two sides. However, now it’s more personal.

I entered the debate on the rtvik side about 6 or 7 months ago first to find out what the best arguments were in favor of the current system practiced in ISKCON, hoping to be pursuaded by them. I soon discovered that the anti-rtvik devotees don’t agree on what should be done. Some think it’s good the way it is, and others think every disciple of a departed guru should be able to assume the diksa guru role without individual GBC approval. There are probably other variations too.

I continued the debate with some of the most prominent anti-rtvik devotees, and I found that their arguments were very weak. They were not at all convincing, and some of their logic was beyond ridiculous to the point of being quite bizarre. The effect of it was that I became more convinced of the position I had taken.

My position on this issue is that I’m arguing for a unified ISKCON. I personally find very little credibility in the notion that the current gurus are properly authorized to act in that capacity, but I don’t consider it appropriate for me to challenge a devotee’s choice of guru. Almost all my friends are disciples of contemporary gurus in ISKCON, and these friendships are important to me. If they have faith that their guru is authorized and bona fide, I don’t think it’s my place to insist otherwise, even if I do not share that faith.

Therefore I’m saying that these two systems should be able to operate simultaneously in ISKCON. There are devotees who think Srila Prabhupada wanted to continue to initiate disciples via rtviks exactly like he was doing before his disappearance, and there are others who think he authorized his disciples to take that role for themselves. Both groups see themselves as followers of Srila Prabhupada one way or another. Any outsider would not be able to distinguish between these groups. Both want to serve Srila Prabhupada’s mission, and therefore I am arguing that they both should be accepted within ISKCON. As I see it, such a unification would make ISKCON very strong.

I’ve been finding that this is totally unacceptable to the anti-rtvik devotees, and now that they’re seeing that they can’t defeat me in debate, they’ve begun to attack me personally via e-mail. Now there are a few devotees posting on the Prabhupada Disciples group and at least one other PAMHO group saying that I’m an enemy of ISKCON and should be kicked out. Devotees whom I’ve never met and who do not know me at all are fiercely attacking my character simply because I disagree with their analysis of the evidence pertaining to Srila Prabhupada’s orders regarding initiations after his disappearance.

This is difficult because I value my devotee relationships very much. I initially sought out devotees because when my quest for spiritual knowledge revealed Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna personally told me, “Get some association of My devotees,” along with other instructions. I want my children to have devotee friends their own age, and we’re active at our local temple, Gita-nagari. None of the local devotees know I’m a supporter of the rtvik view because I don’t want to make an issue of it locally and my service to the temple community has not diminished in the slightest since I adopted this view. Even though I do not agree with the current guru system in ISKCON, I still offer all respect to the gurus and their disciples because they’re Krishna’s devotees as much or in most cases more than I am. It’s been less than a week since I last offered my obeisances at an ISKCON guru’s feet.

Despite all this, in a few hours I’ll be finding several more e-mails sent to a wide devotee audience telling them how much of a demon I supposedly am. I know I’m not perfect, but I’m an honest person who does not have any ulterior motive. I rarely think about what might happen to me if speak the truth from my heart. I’m afraid of what might become of this demonization campaign, but I can’t help but speak the truth as I see it. Materially speaking, I have nothing at all to gain from this, and everything to lose. I might get banned from ISKCON. My kids might have to grow up without devotee friends. None of these devotees who are spreading hateful messages about me know me or care about how their hateful messages might hurt me and my family; but Krishna knows me perfectly, and I trust that I’m doing the right thing in His view, and I believe the same of Srila Prabhupada. There’s nothing that matters to me more than that.

Hare Krishna.

Here is another new series,
Recently I was invited to participate in the Texas Faith Panel. This new column in the Dallas Morning News, William McKenzie/Editorial Columnist describes as follows ,

Each week we will post a question to a panel of about two dozen clergy, laity and theologians, all of whom are based in Texas or are from Texas. They will chime in with their responses to the question of the week. And you, readers, will be able to respond to their answers through the comment box.

So far last Tuesdays post has already 59 comments. Because my post just was just inserted today, due to being a new contributor, there has not been any comment yet regarding it. But I am sure some interesting dialogue will ensue in due course.

So here is the question for this week:

What don't most people understand about religious faith?

What don't most people understand about your faith tradition?

and here was the response:

NITYANANDA CHANDRA DAS, minister of ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), Dallas

One item I believe that is misconceived is that many people think faith is an anomaly that only happens in religion. Often people do not see that their every day life involves faith. One can board a bus or train because they have faith that it will not fall apart. Or one will enter a building with the faith that the roof will not collapse on them.

Another item is that an atheist may think a theist does not value life and therefore the theist thinks about death and other seemingly unimportant inevitable matters. But actually, if someone values something then it is certain they would also value maintaining it. For example, if someone loves their girlfriend, then it would be quite unlikely that person would say, "I love you very much but if we break up I would be fine." Rather, if someone values something, then rational conclusion is that they would want to maintain it. Thus,those who value life are those who sincerely endeavor to understand the after life.

The single most common misconception about Hinduism is that it is a religion, rather than a family of different religions and that Hindus are polytheistic or henotheistic (all gods together represent God). Historically and in modern times, the largest religion in Hinduism is Vaishnavism, which comprises about 80% of Hindus. Vaishnavas maintain that there is one Supreme Lord, Sri Krishna, also known by many names such as Vishnu. This Supreme Lord has His own cabinet of employees, devas (demigods). Just as there is only one Bill Gates but many employees who work for Microsoft, similarly there is one God, Krishna, and many demigods, Shiva, Ganesh, Indra etc. who work for God under His authority.

Hare Krishna :)
Your humble servant,
Nityananda Chandra Das
http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/05/texas-faith-misunderstanding-m.html

This is a class recorded on 5 January 2009 it includes a lovely memory of HDG A.C.Bhaktivadanta Swami Prabhupada, I am sure you will like me be very inspired by it: Morning Class (including Memories of Srila Prabhupada

Narahari das: Haribol from Narahari in Hawaii. You may find the news clip below interesting. Krsna gets the last word.

Sikhi Mahiti das acbsp: We are happy to announce that His Grace Pankajanghari prabhu of Sridham Mayapur will be visiting a few ISKCON Yatra's this summer.

I hope that I have done this correctly; please find the links below to the classes recorded at the Manor (well the first three any way). It has been uploaded using the free file sharing and storage provided by 4share.com The Manor 24-11-09 Morning Class The Manor 8-12-09 Morning Class The Manor 22-12-09 Morning Class My www.4shared.com directory And also here [...]

Pledge to go fur-free at PETA.org.

Nārada Muni continued, 'My dear hunter, your business is killing animals. That is a slight offense on your part. But when you consciously give them unnecessary pain by leaving them half-dead, you incur very great sins. All the animals that you have killed and given unnecessary pain will kill you one after the other in your next life and in life after life.'

- Caitanya-caritamrita Madhya-lila 24.250-251

O dear Mrgari, do you not know
that what you reap is what you sow?
By leaving the animals suffering this way
you will have to suffer one day.

What goes around, comes around
Divine justice you cannot cheat
The actions you perform in this life
determine the fate you will meet

By killing them you incur a fate
that's worse than a thousand deaths
For every animal that you have killed
will come to demand your breath

What comes around, comes around
Divine justice you cannot cheat
The actions you perform in this life
determine the fate you will meet

- "What Goes Around, Comes Around" from Mrgari, the Musical

By Jagabandhu das

Unconditional friendliness towards all jivas reaches it's zenith and is perfectly exemplified by Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and his boundless affection which suffused all his dealings.

1969 May 22: "If in a foreign country there is fire, one has to take help even though you don't know the language. So there is a blazing fire of maya, and we have to inform the people, even if we must use broken language. That is no fault."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1969

1966 May 22:
"Both Paul and I we were at Ashram the whole day. We came back it is seen that somebody came in. One note with chalk is written 'BLESSED'. It is mysterious. Later it was found that $75.00 is taken away. I think the situation not safe."
Prabhupada Journal :: 1966

1969 May 22: "I am seeing our Sankirtana is being accepted more and more in the Western World, and there is very good future for its spreading by the help of my very sincere disciples. So we shall require a large number of mrdangas and karatalas."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1969

    These questions about prasadam and cooking for Srila Prabhupada are from Bhakta Shane:

Question:

Prabhu - I have few questions to ask and would appreciate if you could kindly speak about this subject.

I’m studying Ayurveda and alternative naturapathy and also want to eventually help to bring about better diet and health understandings for devotees as part of that study - for instance in Australia according to some devotees I’ve talked to there have been 9 devotees in last few years that have had their gall bladders removed - (gall bladder  is there to break down fatty foods as part of its function ) so that is a very high statistic and probably avoidable as well. It would be a very good service if you could do this.”

The body beautiful–how galling can it be?

Answer:

When I joined the Sydney temple in Feb. 1972 the prasadam was quite opulent. There wasn’t much sense of healthy eating. If it was offerable to Krsna, it was on the menu, and in no small measures either. The combination of ghee and sugar was a revelation that saved many a new devotee from blooping.

Oh ghee whizz! Saviour of the fallen!

Breakfast was quite simple, mainly fruits and homemade yoghurt and porridge. The real kick was lunch. Rice and dhal, homemade bread, vegetables soaked in ghee, varieties of sweets like rasagulla and gulabjamuns, sweet rice, puris, pakoras and lots of deep fried items.

On top of that, we had the “brahmacari offering” at about 6 PM every evening. We would return from our afternoon SKP, our youthful bodies having already digested the huge lunch and be feeling ravenous again. Most of us were brand new devotees and suffering sensory deprivation from our adoption of the devotional lifestyle. Eating was our compensation. Satisfaction of the tongue was our only sense enjoyment. So the cooks would make a large pot of halava with liberal amounts of nuts and raisins or a variety of berries,

which would be offered to a picture in the kitchen and then distributed hot out of the pot. The trick was to make the halava with at least one inch of melted ghee floating on the surface. The brahmacaris would line up in the hallway outside the kitchen door with their stainless steel bowls, eager for their evening charge of sugar and ghee drenched grains.

And what to speak about the Sunday ‘love feast’.

George liked a little appetizer too

It wasn’t uncommon for us (me anyway) to down at least three heaped platefuls of prasadam and then stash some for the evening or next morning. Bhakta Bernard I remember, once ate 13 bowls of halava for the feast and then stashed 6 more for his breakfast the next morning (Not surprisingly, he never got initiated and blooped after a few months).

My record was six plates in one Sunday feast. A short time after devouring the last one, I developed acute indigestion.

It got so progressively bad that I actually became afraid that I would collapse and die. Somehow after half an hour or so of morbid repentence and fervoured prayer

the pain in my midriff subsided and I took a solemn vow to never eat as much again. From that time on I restricted myself to a maximum of three plates at a sitting.

Well OK, I tell a lie. There was one occasion after that when we were on TSKP to Brisbane. It was a newly opened temple, populated mainly by ex-hippies and young counter-culture dropouts. We arrived in the double decker bus that had been converted into a traveling temple. The sign on the side of the bus read “The Hare Krishna Movement - The Positive Alternative”.

February 1972–Australia’s first traveling temple

I took the slogan to heart. The cooks didn’t really know much so the main sweet was “Simply Wonderfuls”

which were simply ghee, sugar and milk powder rolled into balls. Highly addictive. I ate 24 before developing extreme sugar burn in my throat and esophagus. After that I couldn’t look at one for about five years.

Anyway, I digress. When Srila Prabhupada arrived on April 1, 1972 on his second visit to Australia he stayed for a few days.

Srila Prabhupada, April 1972 with Mohanananda dasa, the Sydney temple president

(more…)

1970 May 22: "Now among our students those who are advanced should take up this matter more seriously, and the Movement which you have started may not be stopped for want of adequate preachers - that is my request to you all."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1970 May 22: "Either you take your birth as a human being or as an animal, there is a set of parents. But Krsna is available only in the human form, so He is more important than the parents. So do not miss this opportunity."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1969 May 22: "If in a foreign country there is fire, one has to take help even though you don't know the language. So there is a blazing fire of maya, and we have to inform the people, even if we must use broken language. That is no fault."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1969

1970 May 22: "Now among our students those who are advanced should take up this matter more seriously, and the Movement which you have started may not be stopped for want of adequate preachers - that is my request to you all."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1970 May 22: "Either you take your birth as a human being or as an animal, there is a set of parents. But Krsna is available only in the human form, so He is more important than the parents. So do not miss this opportunity."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1975 May 22: "If you continue being very much determined to achieve success in this lifetime, then all of your desires to advance in Krishna Consciousness will be fulfilled. This is wanted."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1975

1972 May 22: "So do not think in this way that you are not very important devotees, because I am always thinking of you. Since a long time I have known you and I consider that you are among my very dearest disciples."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972

1972 May 22: "The covers are like the mind and the senses, and the contents of the book are like the soul. Make the covers of the book very much attractive and automatically people will read the knowledge inside."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972

1966 May 22:
"Both Paul and I we were at Ashram the whole day. We came back it is seen that somebody came in. One note with chalk is written 'BLESSED'. It is mysterious. Later it was found that $75.00 is taken away. I think the situation not safe."
Prabhupada Journal :: 1966

1969 May 22: "I am seeing our Sankirtana is being accepted more and more in the Western World, and there is very good future for its spreading by the help of my very sincere disciples. So we shall require a large number of mrdangas and karatalas."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1969

1972 May 22: "The covers are like the mind and the senses, and the contents of the book are like the soul. Make the covers of the book very much attractive and automatically people will read the knowledge inside."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972

Japa is the quiet prayer. You say it loud enough so you can hear it, but it’s mostly for yourself. Radha and Krishna can hear you. They’re close by, so you don’t have to shout. But They’re listening carefully, so you pronounce with great care. Put your heart into it. Hear me, Lord. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. Over and over, the thirty-two syllables are repeated.

From Bhajana Kutir #78

1972 May 22: "So do not think in this way that you are not very important devotees, because I am always thinking of you. Since a long time I have known you and I consider that you are among my very dearest disciples."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972

1975 May 22: "If you continue being very much determined to achieve success in this lifetime, then all of your desires to advance in Krishna Consciousness will be fulfilled. This is wanted."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1975

Most kaptam egy e-mailt a Ratha-yatráról, más néven a Szekérfesztiválról. Gondoltam, érdekel benneteket is.

Ezúton szeretnélek benneteket értesíteni, hogy az idei Ratha Yatra 2009
július 12-én, vasárnapi napon kerül megrendezésre.

Indulás: 11 órakor a Felvonulási térrõl

Vörösmarty tér: 10-19 óra között színpadi program és kirakodóvásár
15 óra a szekér várható megérkezése

From our "Reflections On Friendship From The Monks Of The East Village" series

by Ghanashyam Dasa

Friendships are generally based on a common interest or aim. What is my aim in life? This is the all-important question that will determine the quality of our friendships. The higher the interest or aim, the stronger the bond. At least, this is my personal experience.

In high school, the common interest I shared with a group of friends was to have a good laugh at the expense of another friend. Unlike most teenagers, I couldn’t wait to get to school on Monday mornings. Sunday nights I would sit in my room in full concentration, thinking of a plot and devising a plan to "set up" a "good friend" for a devastating embarrassment. Not very deep, but back then I somehow lived for those moments. My mother was so proud to occasionally see me in my room preparing for the next day at school. I sat there at my desk, pen and paper in hand, thoughtfully gazing out the window, excitedly writing down any breakthrough ideas. My mother would sometimes bring me a hot chocolate. When the plan was executed, success would be determined by the look of shock of the surrounding people, and the laughs that were produced from my friends who weren't targeted.

Here's a sample: I was keen to observe that during gym class, one friend of ours would leave his locker unlocked. He was quite different from the rest of our crew, in that his personal life-style of choice could be understood by the term Death-Rock. He had long hair, played electric guitar, decorated his body with silver spikes, and wore all black at all times. His least favorite class was gym. He hated sports, but more importantly, everyday for one hour, he hated having to change from death-mode to little blue shorts, a white T-shirt, and clean white tennis shoes.

One day he returned to his locker after gym class to change his clothes quickly. But to his surprise, his death-metal wardrobe was nowhere to be found. It was replaced by a pink swimsuit and a mexican sombrero. His high black combat boots were replaced with yellow beach sandals. He became angered, but soon composed himself, all along hoping, and perhaps praying, that it would be just a few moments before his things were returned. But it wasn't so. We would sometimes take things too far. And because our "set ups" were a group activity, we could always protect ourselves with our famous line: "Sorry Steve, but it wasn't me." "I'm not sure who did it." This was our saving grace.Needless to say, most of those friendships didn't continue after high school. Our common interest was shallow, and therefore our bonds were weak.

Fortunately, in college my activities became a little more normal. But still, I could see that, though the form had changed, my aim was the same: It was egoistic and self-centered. Upon a little inward reflection, it seemed that in all my relationships, the motivating factor was my own self-interest. I began to wonder if it was even possible for it to be otherwise. Later, I understood that for the time being, it might not be possible to immediately change this. But there is one secret that I have learned, and am now trying to practice.

There is one self-interest that doesn't harm friendships but strengthens them. What could that be? It is when the common interest of our friendships is self-purity. What could be more healthy for a friendship? When friends are united in trying to uproot their own unhealthy tendencies, truly deep relationships can be born and maintained. Before we can genuinely love one another, we have to be able to love. We each have many things within us that block and prevent us from loving one another. But if friends become determined in this higher aim of self-purity, then even the setbacks and failures can act as opportunities to practice the virtues of humility, love, and forgiveness. When this is our aim, and our attitude is right, nothing can be an impediment. Everything teaches us, helps us.

Of course, to find such a place or community may not be so easy. But such places do exist and I've been fortunate enough to discover one. I am presently living in an asrama on the Lower East Side with a group of people dedicated to such an ideal. Even here, my pranks continue, but they are secondary to a deeper aim. That deeper aim includes acts of devotion and service to one another. There's one monk here who, on occasion, very happily makes a delicious pancake breakfast for the pleasure of all the others.

Recently, I was inspired by his enthusiasm to serve everyone, and so I decided to help. As I mixed bananas and blueberries into the batter, I was suddenly struck with a breakthrough idea that must have come from the Supreme Lord Himself. I thought, "I can make one special pancake with a long hot chili pepper in the middle." "And if I mix it with the others, it will be very exciting to find out which monk will become the lucky reciepient of this flavorful delight." As I waited in silent anticipation after serving out the first batch, a jolt of fear entered my heart. "Oh no!" I thought, "What if an older, more serious monk gets the hot pepper?" "Maybe this wasn't God's idea." It would surely be harder for a more senior monk to appreciate my strange sense of humor. Now in total anxiety, I served out the second batch. I was trying to think of what to do or say if the wrong monk got the hot pepper. But I was drawing a blank. Finally, I heard a murmur from a monk in the far corner of the room. "Why are these pancakes spicy?" he said. Everyone just ignored him, as it apparently made no sense to anyone else. Internally I was laughing, externally I was passing the maple syrup. He took another bite. A few seconds later he loudly shouted, "These pancakes are hot!" I knew that with his second bite he really got a good chunk. It happened to be the youngest monk in the room. I therefore knew, beyond all doubt, that it was in fact the will of the Lord. I felt great relief and the young monk vowed to get revenge.

I still play around like this sometimes, but unlike the past, these friendships mean everything to me. They are fun, yet profound. And they are always meaningful and fulfilling. Of course, there are struggles. We have many short-comings. But they are overlooked and overcome for the sake of these higher aims: compassion, self-purity, and service to one another. Even just striving together for such aims brings greater understanding and joy into the heart. Our bonds are strengthening, and as those virtues of purity actually begin to reawaken, the bonds of friendship can become unbreakable. When self-interest starts to slacken, we finally begin to understand what it means to love.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention What is H1N1 (swine flu)? H1N1 (referred to as “swine flu” early on) is a new influenza virus causing illness in people. This new virus was first detected in people in the United States in April 2009. Other countries, including Mexico and Canada, have reported people sick with this new [...]

Dear Devotees,
Dandavat pranams.

I would like to send a short report on the next schedule of our beloved Gurumaharaja, HH Jayapataka Swami, who is leaving today from Coimbatore, where he was taking ayurvedic treatments to help in his recovery after the stroke suffered last October 23rd, at ISKCON Juhu temple in Bombay. His health by Krsna’s mercy has improved. I was not sending regular reports as His holiness was delivering lectures

read more

The following is a Śrīmad Bhāgavatam class given by H.H. Bhakti Charu Swami on 22 May 2009 at Towaco, USA.

To download the lecture, right click on the download link and choose either “Save link as” or “Save target as”

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.3.1-5 - Chapter 3: The Birth of Lord Kṛṣṇa

The following is a Śrīmad Bhāgavatam class given by H.H. Bhakti Charu Swami on 22 May 2009 at Towaco, USA. To download the lecture, right click on the download link and choose either ldquo;Save link asrdquo; or ldquo;Save target asrdquo; Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.3.1-5 - Chapter 3: The Birth of Lord Kṛṣṇa

The following is a Bhagavad-gītā class given by H.H. Jayadvaita Swami and H.H. Bhakti Charu Swami on 21 May 2009 at Towaco, USA.

To download the lecture, right click on the download link and choose either “Save link as” or “Save target as”

Bhagavad-gītā As It Is 10.12-13 -Chapter 10: The Opulence of the Absolute

The following is a Bhagavad-gītā class given by H.H. Jayadvaita Swami and H.H. Bhakti Charu Swami on 21 May 2009 at Towaco, USA. To download the lecture, right click on the download link and choose either ldquo;Save link asrdquo; or ldquo;Save target asrdquo; Bhagavad-gītā As It Is 10.12-13 -Chapter 10: The Opulence of the Absolute

The following is a Evening talk given by H.H. Bhakti Charu Swami on 20 May 2009 at Hillsborough, USA.

To download the lecture, right click on the download link and choose either “Save link as” or “Save target as”

The following is a Evening talk given by H.H. Bhakti Charu Swami on 20 May 2009 at Hillsborough, USA. To download the lecture, right click on the download link and choose either ldquo;Save link asrdquo; or ldquo;Save target asrdquo;

The word "mellifluous" usually refers to sweet, flowing speech. This - in pure form -- certainly applies to Lord Krishna, Who is said to be the best linguist and who know every language, even those of non-human entities who communicate within a given species. "Krsna is the linguist of all wonderful languages. He is a truthful and very pleasing speaker. He is expert in speaking, and He is a very wise, learned scholar and a genius."

Jayapataka Swami Vyas Puja - Nrsimhadev Prayers

Jada Bharata: A dream becomes automatically known to a person as false and immaterial, and similarly one eventually realizes that material happiness in this life or the next, on this planet or a higher planet, is insignificant. When one realizes this, the Vedas, although an excellent source, are insufficient to bring about direct knowledge of the truth.

Srimad Bhagavatam - Canto 5 Chapter 11 Verse 3

It's 7:58 am on 21 May, 2009. We are in Sofia, Bulgaria getting reading for our departure to London, where I will giving a lecture tonight, and then onwards tomorrow to Mauritius, where I am slated to give a series of lectures over several days. It is extremely rewarding to live a life of complete dedication to the Krishna consciousness movement because...

ISKCON Cartal Overload refers to the widespread tendency of ISKCON kirtans to have excessive cartals in them. This means both in number and (both consequently and independently) in volume.

Unfortunately this has become a cultural norm. What people accept as a "normal kirtan" actually has too much cartal in it. When you listen to recordings it becomes clearer - turn the volume down and the chanting disappears, while a huge wash of cartals remains.

I'm thinking that the ISKCON cartal overload can be dealt with by close miking everything and the liberal but sensible use of compression.

I've been thinking about it, and my motto for kirtan recording is:

"Better than being there"

The cartals are too loud in most kirtan recordings because the cartals are too loud in most kirtans. In the kirtans at my place we have trained cartal players who used tuned cartals that are appropriate for the space and the tone of the kirtan, and play appropriately for the level of the kirtan.

Unfortunately, such trained cartal players are few and far between. Cartals are superficially the easiest instrument to pick up and play, so there are a lot of "enthusiastic amateurs" - who can totally destroy a kirtan recording - not only this, but they are detracting from the experience of the kirtan for many people and can even cause physical damage to hearing.

Through education, policing, and the use of appropriate technological counter-measures when these two fail, the goal is to produce kirtans that sound at least as good as being there, and in most cases better.

I'll get together with some good cartal players and post some videos of their technique.

Here's a rocking kirtan lead by Amala Kirtan das, recorded by Rupa Madhurya:

• Amala Kirtan (mp3, 80mins, 81MB)

It's hosted on Rupa's site, where you can also watch a video of the kirtan.

Keep things clear

Edmonton, Alberta

My guestimation for walking is about 5 kilometers comprised of pacing in the basement of the Krishna centre in Edmonton. It is surely not the same as walking outside but you take what you can get. I’m not dressed for the weather.

A short break from indoors came in the form of a spin in Nitin’s car. Nitin took Revati, a dear friend, Sudhama, one of the two resident pujari or priests and I downtown. I wanted to show Sudhama, the newly arrived pujari from south India, what designers do with window displays involving composition, lighting and color coordination. I often look at Holt Renfrew displays as a source of inspiration for creative flows of energy. I pointed out to Sudhama that he might get ideas that he can implement at the Krishna centre where there is a ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­shrine/altar of deities’ named Radha Govinda.

When colours don’t match well my mind goes momentarily in a rage. So when it came to preparing a setup for conducting the Nine Devotions workshop the clashing coloured pillows had to be stashed in a closet. Chairs had to be positioned in a curved shape facing the facilitator’s chair. Extra clutters of things were also removed to accommodate an open spacesiousness to avoid distractions.

It is hard to work in an environment where there is chaos. Psychologically there is enough chaos within us. It is no lie when we say that the mind is a cesspool of thoughts. We don’t need to enhance the garbage.

When ones surroundings are neat and orderly then the chances of calming the mind are increased like anything.

5 Km