Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 5, No. 9b
By Krishna-kripa das
(May 2009, part one, section b)
Nrsimha Caturdasi Festival, Simhachalam, Germany
(Sent from Paris, France, on 5/24/09)

The Nrsimha Caturdasi Festival at Simachalam

Prahlada-Nrsimha, Simhacalam, Germany.

The Nrsimha festival at Simhachalam, our farm in southeastern Germany, was attended by several senior devotees, the most prominent being Sacinandana and Kadamba Kanana Swamis, and many of them shared valuable realizations with us, which I will pass on to you in the course of this issue.

Another high point was a truly beautiful abhiseka of the awesome Prahlada-Nrsimhadeva Deity there.

Prahlada-Nrsimha abhiseka.

Outside they had an abhiseka of a small Nrisimha Deity for kids.

There was so much kirtana (chanting) and katha (telling of pastimes and philosophy), all well attended, that it was truly inspiring.

Another interesting event was the swinging of a small Deity of Nrsimhadeva, something I had never seen before.

Young devotee swings small Nrsimha Deity while pujari fans with a rare black camara.

One evening, the pujari (priest) brought the small Nrsimhadeva Deity out to circumambulate the temple. He ran at such a quick pace, I could hardly keep up. Each night of the four-day festival, some devotees stayed up till mangala-arati doing bhajana in the temple. Many friends I knew from Germany, Czech, the Poland festivals, and the Mayapur Bhakti-sastri were there, and it was nice to have their association again. Even Vijaya Prabhu came from America. While there I planned a series of harinamas for Vienna, got invited back to a nama-hatta program in Slovakia for later in the summer, and got both an invitation and a ride to Zurich. All and all it was a wonderful event, and I recommend the all devotees spend at least one Nrsimha Caturdasi at Simhachalam in their life. Who knows, they may become addicted to it, like many of the devotees there.

There are hundreds of wonderful pictures of the festival shared by Gauranga Das at http://picasaweb.google.de/gaurangaji/NarasimhaCaturdasi2009 and http://picasaweb.google.de/gaurangaji/NarasimhaCaturdasi2009II .

Inspiration from Lectures

Bhakti Bhusana Swami dances in ecstasy.

Bhakti Bhusana Swami:

Whatever Krishna does, He carries to the extreme. He is the sweetest son, the dearest lover, the most ecstatic devotee with unparalleled loving ecstasies, and so as Lord Nrsimhadeva, He is the most ferocious lionlike personality.

Prahlada Maharaja accepted the throne only as a facility for benefiting the conditioned souls. At the end of Srila Prabhupada’s life, his Godbrothers encouraged Srila Prabhupada to give up management and think of Radha-Krishna, but he did not agree, as he was in the mood of Prahlada Maharaja, wanting only to benefit the conditioned souls until the end of his life.

Sacinananda Swami smiles blissfully as he plays the karatalas.

Sacinandana Swami:

Caitanya Mahaprabhu especially relished hearing the Dhruva pastime and the Nrsimha pastime from Gadadhara Pandit at Tota-gopinatha. Whenever Gadadhara Pandit would finish reading either of them, the Lord would eagerly appeal to him to recite it again.

If we want to attain Krishna, we can never give up in the face of obstacles. This attitude is there in both the beginning devotees and the most exalted pure devotees, the gopis.

Lord Nrsimha’s laugh is so fierce that Hiranyakasipu had to close his eyes.

Once in a city in Germany, a man emerged from a bar, opened up his shirt, assumed a fighting stance, and rushed toward the harinama party, intending to finish them off. We changed the song to “namas te narasimhaya.” Then one strongly built Turkish gentlemen attacked that man before he reached the party, punishing him so severely, we had to appeal to the Turkish gentleman, “Please stop, after all, he did not actually hurt us, he just made us change our melody.”

There are external obstacles and internal obstacles. How often does someone try to attack us? Is it not more often that we are attacked by lust, greed, and anger? Thus our internal enemies are more of a problem. Thus we appeal to Lord Nrsimha to appear in our heart and vanquish our internal enemies. Once such prayer is Srimad-Bhagavatam 5.18.8:

“I offer my respectful obeisances to Lord Nrsimhadeva who is the source of all power. Oh my Lord, who possesses nails and teeth, which are just like thunderbolts. Kindly vanquish our demonlike desires for fruitive activities in this material world.”

Many devotees who have recited this prayer for months report that in fact the Lord did free them from such impurities. Bhaktivinoda Thakura recommends begging Lord Nrsimha for the benediction of being able to worship Radha and Krishna in Navadvipa. Lord Nrsimha, who has vatsalya bhava for those who take shelter of him, will affectionately grant His blessings in that way. ‘Vatsa’ means ‘calf.’ ‘Vatsalya’ means having affection for a dependent like a cow does for its calf.

Kadamba Kanana Swami swings Prithu Prabhu.

Kadamba Kanana Swami:

The people of India have a great taste for performing austerities, with hopes of attaining the Lord’s mercy, purification, and blessings. In that spirit, I come here to this remote temple [Simacalam] every year.

We have to accept the arrangements that the Lord makes for our benefit, although they are very hard to surrender to. After I had recovered from being shot in 1995, when I first came before Lord Nrsimha, I was a little fearful. We pray to be free from our material desires, but the means the Lord uses to accomplish this may not simply waving a wand; it may be a very heavy experience. I am still even now learning many lessons from that experience in 1995.

In one sense, there is no difference between Lord Caitanya and Lord Nrsimha. One name of Nrsimha is Nrsimha Caitanya. This entire age is touched by Lord Caitanya. By Lord Caitanya’s smile, people are developing an interest in spiritual life. This interest is not coming from themselves. All avatars are also touched by Lord Caitanya. There is one last thing that only Caitanya can remove from our heart. It is for the benediction of the removal of that final obstacle, I am praying to Lord Nrsimha-Caitanya both for myself and for all of you.

Mother Dina-sarana, GBC of Germany:

The Lord shows His mercy by giving us a really hard time. In this way, we develop our devotional character more so than if He just waved his hand and freed us of impurities. The Lord is interested in removing those little things that we think are insignificant compared to our Krishna consciousness and our preaching, those things that we are always trying to hide. If we are determined to go back to Godhead, Krishna is determined to make sure that no defect remains within us.

Prahlada’s affection for the Lord was so great that even in the face of His most fiercesome incarnation ripping apart Prahlada’s demonic father’s body, he was still situated in his eternal affection for the Lord.

Kripa-moya Prabhu:

I like to talk about surrender to Krishna. I like to associate with people who have surrendered to Krishna. I like to distribute books about surrender to Krishna. I like to dress as someone surrendered to Krishna. But I don’t like to surrender to Krishna. That is my problem.

Two years ago my doctor told me I had cancer, and it made me look at my lack of surrender much more seriously.

Srila Prabhupada says the Sixth Canto, Part One, is one of the three most important Bhagavatam volumes as it teaches, “By calling out to the Lord in complete desperation to be saved, you can get a second chance and perfect your life.

Why does Krishna come so many times? Because we need to be reminded so many times.

Sridhara Swami, the original Bhagavatam commentator, had a personal Deity of Lord Nrsimha. Prabhupada’s sister also had a Deity of Nrsimha.

When Mr. Nair expired, Srila Prabhupada said, “In Kali-yuga, Lord Nrsimha is still dispensing with demons in the form of the heart attack.”

We must become complete absorbed in the Lord’s pastimes, and then we can forget our previous life in this world.

Once Srila Prabhupada was so absorbed in the pastime of Nrsimha that his disciples were performing, that when Lord Nrsimha leapt out of pillar he showed genuine surprise, although intimately familiar with the story.

Sanda and Amarka asked Prahlada how he was unaffected by their attempts to kill him. He replied innocently. How is it that poison who my mother’s [Laksmi’s] sister [as they were both born from the milk ocean] would hurt me? How is it that falling on my mother’s [Bhumi’s, the wife of my Lord Vahara’s] lap could harm me? How is it possible my father’s tongue [the sacrifical fire is considered to be the tongue of Lord Vishnu] could harm me?

Sacinandana Swami:

There is a temple in your heart. It is dusty due to neglect. Cry out to attain the Lord of the heart. That is what we can learn from Prahlada-Nrsimha lila. First we see the Lord in the heart, and then we see Him outside.

Mother Rasajna Prabhu:

One of the things Srila Prabhupada liked most was to see performances. After seeing the “Krishna Kidnaps Rukmini” play, Srila Prabhupada made these comments which his servant related to the players: “Finally my disciples are taking this seriously. This is better than reading in my books because it sticks in the mind.”

Mother Lakmimani Prabhu (right) helps
remove garland during abhiseka.

Mother Laksmimani Prabhu:

Prabhupada had a Nrsimhadeva side to him, anger for the protection of his devotees.

Srila Prabhupada had complete faith that our hearts would change and the world would change by the power of the holy name.

Sometimes we forget the Prabhupada and Nrsimhadeva are protecting us.

Kripa Moya Prabhu:

Guru Dasa once returned from India as Srila Prabhupada’s servant. He said Srila Prabhupada suggested to go on harinama wearing Nrsimhadeva masks. He said that it would catch on, and everyone would want to get the Nrsimha masks and the devotees could sell them.

Kadambda Kanana Swami:

Yasoda would tell Krishna the Nrsimha-lila as a bedtime story. Krishna would smile when Yasoda got to the part where Nrsimhadeva ripped out the intestines of the Hiranyakasipu.

I have seen many Nrsimha temples but none where Lord Nrsimhadeva manifests His presence so fully as here at Simhachalam.

Why not just worship Krishna? After all, so many demons attack Vrndavana, and Krishna protects the residents very nicely.

Laghu-bhagavatamrita states, “Of all the incarnations, Rama and Nrsimha are different, in that they have all six opulences fully.”

The Lord is so softhearted that as Lord Nrsimha he becomes terribly angry when His devotee is cruelly tortured. Thus His ferocious anger is actually a manifestation of his supreme softheartedness toward His innocent devotee.

The evening kirtana was so lively and the devotees so enthusiastic, Kadamba Kanana Swami kept it going to 9:30 p.m., when the feast was finally served. High points of the feast were an excellent well-spiced curd sabji and sweet rice.

Kripa Moya Prabhu:

One day is not enough to pay attention to Lord Nrsimha. At least a week is required. Then we will be inclined to take His protection and our relationship with Him seriously.

Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura once expressed that he had come to give the love the gopis have for Krishna, but he had to spend all his time cutting down the jungle of Mayavada and sense gratification, so he could not give what he originally intended.

Srimad-Bhagavatam is a different book every time we pick it up, because we see it from a new level of realization.

I deal with congregational preaching in England, and there was one man who was successful chanting, reading Bhagavad-gita, and not eating meat or eggs. Unfortunately fishing was his only contemplative activity, and he was only succeeded in giving it up for six months. One time he went fishing as before, except now he felt very bad about it. Once he sensed he had a catch, and began to reel it in, feeling very guilty. But after reeling it in, he found it was not a fish at all, but a plastic bag with something in it. On closer inspection he found that something was a very waterlogged copy of Bhagavad-gita As It Is. The man decided that this was a sign from Krishna that he should take his spiritual life more seriously.

We tend to practice Krishna consciousness while avoiding relationships at the same time, often because of bad experiences in material life.

Srila Prabhupada once said that the hardest thing is to give up sense gratification, but even harder is to give up sense gratification and to preach, and even harder than that is to give up sense gratification and to preach in the association of others who are giving up sense gratification and preaching. Thus the hardest thing is to be part of a spiritual movement.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati once said, “Ninety-nine percent of our spiritual advancement comes from bowing down.”

Sacinandana Swami:

A new devotee once asked Srila Prabhupada, “What do you feel when you chant Hare Krishna?” Srila Prabhupada answered, “I feel no fear.”

There is a point in your spiritual life when you consciously perform your activities desiring only a relationship with Krishna.

One comes to think, “Alas! Why have I served the illusory material energy for so long? Krishna! I am Your servant! Ever since I left the shelter of Your lotus feet, my life has been completely devastated!”

If you offer this prayer, Krishna fortifies your heart and weakens maya’s influence, so you can progress fearlessly.

One carload of devotees came 15 hours by car for the Nrsimha festival here. You really turned toward Lord Nrsimha! Congratulations!

When I am spiritually weak, I criticize everything, but now, after yesterday’s Nrsimha festival, I am appreciating the good qualities of all the devotees.

In Cologne, Kadamba Kanana Swami was asked, “How do I come to another level of my spiritual life?” He answered simply and profoundly, “You have to make a sacrifice for Krishna.” This can be a simple sacrifice. Even just focusing on hearing each word of a single Hare Krishna mantra, one can immediately experience a higher taste.

If we are offended, first we are shocked. Then we meditate on what was said. Then we feel bad that we are thinking about the offense and not thinking about Krishna. Then we act with rage against the culprit. Then we forget about it. But something remains, a kind of resentment, that sometimes lasts one’s whole life, and which keeps us from serving Krishna. Therefore, we should avoid offending others, and seek forgiveness if we have done so, by admitting to them that we were wrong and we are sorry.

Sacinandana Swami on Gaura-lila:

Upon seeing Isvara Puri in Gaya, Lord Caitanya exclaimed, “My visit to Gaya is perfect because of seeing you. Compared to the potency of seeing a holy place, the potency of seeing a Vaisnava is hundreds of times greater. All My ancestors are now delivered.”

When Isvara Puri came unexpectedly to Lord Caitanya’s for lunch, Lord Caitanya fed him all that he had cooked for Himself, saying He would cook again if necessary. Unseen by anyone, Laksmi entered the kitchen and cooked another lunch for Lord Caitanya.

The power of blessings is much greater than our own endeavor. The desire to serve the Lord is given by one who is strong in that desire. If we simply accept the words of the guru and act accordingly, we can come to experience the power of blessings. Our difficulty is that we have so much faith in our own activities, that it is difficult to appreciate the power of blessings. To get the blessings one must simply understand that water flows from a higher position to a lower position. Thus we have to get down as low as possible. Narada Muni is a great of example of the power of the blessings of the bhaktivedantas. Let us consider how we can attain blessings in our own life. We attain blessings by pleasing the one who gives the blessings.

This devotee named Kancipurnam would serve his Deity by fanning him everyday. He was so intimate with the Deity, he would talk to Him as a friend. Once a friend of Kancipurnam wished to know whether he would go back to Godhead at the end of this life, and he asked Kancipurnam to inquire from the Deity. The Deity replied, “Yes.” After that Kancipurnam decided he would ask the Deity the same question about himself the next day. The Deity told him he would not go back to Godhead. He was curious why his friend would go and not him, so he asked the Deity. The Deity said that your friend served My devotee, but you only served Me. The very next day, Kancipurnam left his Deity and his village and went to Sri Rangam, and disguised, he faithfully served a great devotee for many months as a menial servant. Finally the Lord arranged a rainstorm drenching his disguise so he had to wear his former attire while it dried, and thus he was detected. He took it as the Lord’s mercy, and returned to his former service. For this story we can learn that service to the devotee is superior to service to the Lord.

Kadamba Kanana Swami:

Prahlada is famous for having attained perfection by remembering or constantly meditating on the pastimes the Lord. Prahlada, whose name means ‘form of complete happiness,’ regularly forgot himself in the overwhelming happiness of his devotional meditation. We call out to Nrsimhadeva for protection, but Prahlada never did that. Instead, he accepted whatever happened as the Lord’s mercy.

So soon as we speak of Krishna as all-attractive, the idea of relationship must be there. In the beginning, it is not clear what is our service in relationship with Krishna, but in the course of time, it becomes clear.

I have a very few disciples in Africa, and so one particular one I was telling that I wanted to be a preacher, and I sent him to Mayapur to study Bhakti-sastri. There he developed a desire to study Sanskrit. What was he going to do? Teach Sanskrit in Africa? After I while, I relented. While studying, he got involved in translating English into his local African language. Then I understood, knowledge of Sanskrit would help in translation work. He was destined to be a translator, and thus, a great asset to the preaching.

We meditate on the Lord, and Lord reciprocates. By committing to a particular service, we increase our meditation, and Krishna increases his reciprocation. Every moment we are experiencing Krishna in some way or other. Second initiation is the beginning of our serious meditation, thinking, “How can I be what the Lord and His devotees desire?”

In Jaiva Dharma, Bhaktivinoda Thakura mentions that Raghunatha Das followed the path of spontaneous revelation, and Gopal Guru followed the path of conscious contemplation, as far as attaining their eternal spiritual identities was concerned, and thus there is support for both paths. Srila Prabhupada taught us our spiritual identity would be revealed by Krishna in an advanced stage.

Real compassion can be there if one has a superior experience, and therefore to be compassionate, we actually have such an experience.

Q: How to determine our particular service for Krishna?
A: It is not all propensity or trying out different things. It comes automatically, but before that, one should cultivate a service attitude, otherwise we will end up cultivating material desires.

Q: How did you accept the position of guru?
A: Jayadvaita Swami thought of the idea that I could initiate disciples on his behalf, and yet take full responsibility for taking care of them. He argued that for pushing on this movement on, I should do it. It was tried in that “rtvik-like” way for six months, and the GBC decided that if one’s guru orders one to accept disciples then, although it is not permitted by etiquette that one initiate in one’s guru’s presence, that it would be acceptable.

Sacinandana Swami on Gaura-lila:

Raghunatha Dasa Goswami was incredibly grateful to Lord Caitanya for giving him both freedom material life and gift of Krishna.

Raghunatha Dasa Goswami would speak four hours daily on the pastimes of Lord Caitanya. It is my goal that when I am old and can do less other service that I may speak the pastimes of Lord Caitanya for four hours a day and leave my body chanting “Gaura! Gaura!”

We already have a TV in our heart. We do not need to purchase one. It is now broken, but Krishna consciousness is the repair process. When repaired we can see the divine pastimes of the Lord on the TV in our heart.

Lord Caitanya advised Raghunatha Dasa Goswami to always speak of the names and qualities of Krishna.

When our mind is thinking of other things than Krishna, we begin to enter the material world. When we speak of other things, we more deeply enter the material world, and when we do things unrelated to Krishna, we most fully enter the material world. Spiritual life means reverse this process, first engaging the body, then the speech, and finally the mind in devotional service.

Lord Caitanya wanted us to chant at fixed number of rounds. Why? If we want to establish a relationship with someone, we must deal with the person consistently. If you deal with Krishna in such a way that one day you have time for Him and another day you don’t, what will He think? Therefore we must chant a fixed number of rounds to show Krishna that we care about the relationship.
“Nibandha” means to bind together. We bind our thought and lips together. When both are together chanting becomes more powerful. Having affection for your practice helps with this.

Perfection in devotion to Krishna is already within. Bhaktivinoda Thakura used the analogy of a flower first budding, and then blooming.

Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura recommended japa be chanted only loud enough for you to hear. Srila Prabhupada echoes this in Nectar of Devotion when he says, “uttering the maha-mantra (Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare) very softly, only for one's own hearing, is called japa.”

Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura says the gift of the garlands to devotees by Lord Caitanya when they were returning to Bengal signifies a gift of the holy names, which are strung on a chain of love.

Q: How can we constantly talk about Krishna?
A: This state is not artificially produced but comes by our spiritual advancement. Still we can find devotees who like to hear about Krishna, and then talk with them about Krishna. Then after that, begin enlightening the people in general about Krishna. At the very least, you will be benefiting yourself. Try to bring the conversation to Krishna in a natural way. If you think of Krishna, it will not be artificial to talk about Him, but if you do not think of Krishna, then such talks will seem artificial.

After hearing this I shared a nice Bhaktisiddhanta Saravati Thakura quote on the value of the chanting the holy name with devotees who I thought would appreciate, and it was a very rewarding experience.

Sacinandana Swami:

Sankirtana means both that the chanting is done in congregation and that it is complete. Complete means that we engage each one of our assets in the Lord’s service.

When you hear about Krishna, Krishna becomes bound to you, but only with a thin thread, when you meditate about Krishna, Krishna becomes bound to you by a rope, but if you engage in Krishna sankirtana, Krishna becomes bound to you with an iron chain which He does not break.” --Brhad-Bhagavatamrita.

Brhad-Bhagavatamrita also talks about lila-kirtana, but superior to that is nama-kirtana.

Through the glorification of Krishna we will naturally become personally interested in Krishna.

Longing for Krishna is very important. One analogy given is “The cataka bird always prays for the cloud, regardless of whether it showers rains or throws a thunderbolt.”

I can see that many of you have appreciated the love and affection of Lord Nrsimha at the festival this year. Please come again next year.

When Sacinandana Swami said that, it echoed my own feelings. I have been able to appreciate Nrsimhadeva and His rather ghastly destruction of Hiranyakasipu in a philosophical way for some time, but at this festival, I was more able to see Lord Nrsimha as the affectionate protector of Prahlada, and indeed, all devotees who chant His glories and bow down before Him. Thus for the first time really, I felt some glimmer of love for Lord Nrsimha, the affectionate protector of His devotees, and one of the Lord’s more extraordinary incarnations.

---

om namo bhagavate narasimhaya namas tejas-tejase avir-avirbhava vajra-nakha vajra-damstra karmasayan randhaya randhaya tamo grasa grasa om svaha; abhayam abhayam atmani bhuyistha om ksraum

“I offer my respectful obeisances unto Lord Nrsimhadeva, the source of all power. O my Lord who possesses nails and teeth just like thunderbolts, kindly vanquish our demonlike desires for fruitive activity in this material world. Please appear in our hearts and drive away our ignorance so that by Your mercy we may become fearless in the struggle for existence in this material world.” (Srimad-Bhagavatam 5.18.8)

OK, you've waited long enough.

Here's a rough mix of the first kirtan, which was a sound check / crowd warm up number. Janardana is leading this one.

There was some feedback through the harmonium mic early on in the piece, which was picked up also in the room mic and the SM57 on the top end of the tabla. I used a channel EQ on each of these tracks to remove it. It's from around 92Hz down, peaking between 86 and 92Hz. I used the analyzer to find it, then heavily EQ'd this part of the spectrum. I then used automation to turn the EQ on as the feedback hits, then off as it passes. I stopped it pretty quickly when it actually happened. I must have been raising the harmonium, either through its input gain, or output to PA (using the input pan); noticed it happen; and backed off immediately.

I got the idea for this particular "fix-it-in-the-mix" technique from a Youtube video by Bob Katz, author of Mastering Audio: The Art and Science. The video is "Bass Frequency Surgery".

Here's a screenshot of the EQ settings:

And of the automation (click for larger view):

See my previous post for a list of the mics used. There are two mrdangas as well as the tabla in this - they are coming through the room mic only.

And here is the track:

• Janardana Kewin - Tribute to Birmingham 24hr Kirtan (mp3, 18MB, 13:38)

OK, I'm off to hang upside down in my closet for a few minutes before I go to work...

This is just the Hare Krishna bhajan sung by Kalindi Dasi at the Global Sacred Music Celebration hosted by the Unity Church of Dallas. 

Dallas, TX
2009-03-29

Download: 2009-03-29 - Global Sacred Music Celebration - Kalachandjis Temple Kirtan Band.mp3

We were invited to perform at the Unity Church of Dallas for a "Global Sacred Music Celebration".  This was quite an event.  We were honored to be the first performance.  

0:00:00 - Introduction
0:09:00 - Hinduism - Kalachandji Temple Kirtan Band
0:17:40 - Budhism
0:21:20 - Islam
0:26:50 - Native American (Peru)
0:31:40 - Judaism
0:41:04 - Christianity - Dance - Ordered Steps Production
0:46:56 - Baha'i
0:54:50 - Christinity - JD Martin & Jan Garrett
1:04:42 - Christianity - Unity Choir
1:09:04 - Christianity - Jan Garrett
1:13:52 - African Traditions
1:22:40 - Conclusion

Dallas, TX
2009-03-24

1967 May 24: "An important negotiation is going on in respect of purchasing a very nice house for the ISKCON H.Q. in New York. So I may not start in the beginning of the Second week. I hope this will not cause any inconvenience."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1967

1970 May 24: "I am so glad that you remember the auspicious day in 1944 when I started my Back to Godhead magazine. I think in the first issue you wrote some article. It is a great pleasure to remember those days of cooperation."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1970 May 24: "Bhakti Saranga Goswami presided over the meeting in which our revered Kesav Maharaja participated. On account of my selecting Goswami Maharaja, Sripada Tirtha Maharaja (then Kunjababa) and Bon Maharaja also refused to accept my invitation."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1970 May 24: "We have got now 30 centers, and in each center the devotees are going to the streets and selling Back to Godhead at the rate of 100 to 400 copies daily, and the price is $.50 per copy which is in Indian exchange Rs. 3.50."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1972 May 24: "In India, the independent and self supporting method does not apply. Bombay is the headquarters and all other centers shall send their funds for centralizing in Bombay."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972

1972 May 24: "Actually it is the duty of the Spiritual Master to find fault with his students so that they may make progress, not that he should always be praising them. I am only interested that you become Krishna Conscious."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972

1967 May 24: "An important negotiation is going on in respect of purchasing a very nice house for the ISKCON H.Q. in New York. So I may not start in the beginning of the Second week. I hope this will not cause any inconvenience."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1967

1970 May 24: "I am so glad that you remember the auspicious day in 1944 when I started my Back to Godhead magazine. I think in the first issue you wrote some article. It is a great pleasure to remember those days of cooperation."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1970 May 24: "We have got now 30 centers, and in each center the devotees are going to the streets and selling Back to Godhead at the rate of 100 to 400 copies daily, and the price is $.50 per copy which is in Indian exchange Rs. 3.50."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1970 May 24: "Bhakti Saranga Goswami presided over the meeting in which our revered Kesav Maharaja participated. On account of my selecting Goswami Maharaja, Sripada Tirtha Maharaja (then Kunjababa) and Bon Maharaja also refused to accept my invitation."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1970

1972 May 24: "In India, the independent and self supporting method does not apply. Bombay is the headquarters and all other centers shall send their funds for centralizing in Bombay."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972

This evening I took a break from watching the 24 hour kirtan in Birmingham to record a couple of hours of kirtan at the temple. His Holiness Prabhavishnu Swami is a great kirtan singer.

H.H. Prabhavishnu Swami sang seven bhajans/kirtans. SM57 over the top of the harmonium. For live sound reinforcement this is the best place. SM58 mic for vocals.

Arjuna on tablas. SM57 for the dayan (top end). AKG D770 for the bayan (bottom end).

Janna sang backing vocals. SM58.

Sridhar played flute and saxophone. I used a mic that was kicking around the temple - a CAD 25A, a low budget supercardioid dynamic mic. It actually seems pretty good for the quoted prices - sturdy as anything, and sounds ok. Supercardioid is the pattern that you want for live kirtan mics, to reduce leakage and feedback.

I "rode the faders" the whole night, adjusting the gain control to get the hottest signal to disk without clipping, and the pan control to produce a mono live mix.

I tried my idea of using the post-record pan control as a volume control for a live mix (see Using the BR-1600CD to do a live mix while recording). It worked.

I had my attention divided between two things:

1. Monitoring the gain control for each channel to make sure that the signal coming in was hot, but not clipping.

2. Monitoring the input pan controls to give an expressive live mix, without getting feedback.

Making a live kirtan mix rock

Yesterday Dominic lent me two audio engineering books by Bobby Owsinski. I looked him up and found that he's written quite a few good ones. There is an excerpt on his website from his book "Making Your Band Sound Great". The excerpt is from Chapter 8: The Keys to Greatness.

Dynamics

If you only learn one thing from this book it's that playing with dynamics is the greatest key to making your band sound great. It's an improvement that both you (the band) and the audience will notice immediately, and will automatically separate you from about 90% of other bands on the planet. ... Most bands are oblivious to dynamics and play at one volume throughout the entire song, song after song, set after set.

Owsinski makes an interesting observation on how mastering dynamics is perceived by an audience:
"suddenly they'll start telling you how tight you sound"

I learned an interesting principle from Stav's book "Mixing With Your Mind". When you introduce an element in the mix you can bring it up in volume to make the listener aware of it, then fade it back. It doesn't need to stay up once it's made itself known.

Based on these two things, and what I saw Dominic do at Dave Stringer's gig here, I manipulated the live mix to give it more dynamics.

At the beginning of the kirtan I had the main vocal on 50%, and the harmonium between 25% and 40%.

As the kirtan progressed I would raise the vocal, ending on 100%. I also brought up the tablas and backing vocal.

Whenever Maharaja would sing I would drop the bottom end of the tabla, and Sridhar's mic (flute or sax). Then on the response I would bring the tabla and sax back up.

Over the course of the evening I also pushed the overall volume up. I had to contend with some feedback at different points, but was able to isolate and stop it quickly. That's why I think supercardioid mics are the way to go for live kirtan, which is usually performed in small spaces with lots of potential for leakage and feedback.

One thing I learned from the Christmas Kirtans was to use a new song on the BR-1600CD for each song. Initializing them takes time. I did it while the translation was being read afterwards. I figured out how to save the compressor settings as a user patch, which saved me time, and allowed me to refine them over successive songs. I put an 8:1 compressor on the vocal with a 30ms attack and 120ms release, which I then changed to 250ms on a later track. I also put some compression on the tabla bottom end. The other tracks were set to limiting at -6db.

I'll refine my compressor technique and create some custom setups. The BR-1600CD ships with some standard layouts, like "rock band" or "horn ensemble" with compressors and EQs configured on each track for a different instrument. I'll create my own user set up with the tracks configured for standard kirtan instruments, like "input 3 - mrdanga top end, input 4 - mrdanga bottom end". I can probably copy the compressor and EQ settings from the existing input presets, or from Logic Pro's channel strips.

I take notes at every recording now.

I have a spiral bound notebook where I keep notes about each recording I do, with the date, the mics used, the channels, the channel settings and anything else that comes up. This way I can systematically improve my game.

I'll have some of the tunes to post in the next few days.

(Photos by Krishnapada, who organised and hosted the evening, via facebook.)

1972 May 24: "Actually it is the duty of the Spiritual Master to find fault with his students so that they may make progress, not that he should always be praising them. I am only interested that you become Krishna Conscious."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1972

Aditi Sriram graduated from Columbia University in 2007 and has been working in New York City as a consultant since then.

Her spiritual heritage and contemporary search for truth and wisdom has led her to a time-tested source, the Bhagavad-Gita.

Here, she shares some of her dynamic and sincere insights and personal inspirations.

Before I turned 18, I lived in 4 countries and attended 6 schools. Transition, adjustment, flexibility – these were concepts I understood and embraced. It was after I settled into a dorm room at Columbia University as a freshman that time stopped moving so quickly, and my attitude started to shift from adaptation to identification and independence. I was no longer living with my parents, so obedience and duty had to come from within. Suddenly I was relying on my conscience instead of my parents to discipline me, and navigating a moral code for the sake of principle and not deference. College juxtaposed endless opportunity – hundreds of academic majors, internships and lectures – with inescapable mundanities – assignments, alarm snooze buttons, laundry – and it was up to me to prioritize all my activities in the way that best expressed my identity.

Inevitably I signed up for a class on Middle Eastern and Indian Civilizations, eager to see my culture in a glossy textbook. Conversations erupted about religion, caste, education and the controversies embedded in these constructs. I’d contribute with personal experience, having lived in India, but 21^st century Bombay does not explain sati (self-sacrifice) very effectively. I remembered what my father would always say to my siblings and I when we had questions about specific Hindu teachings – why isn’t there an equivalent Brahmachari Puja (celibate monk life) for women? What are the differences between Shaivites (worshipers of Shiva) and Vaishnavites (worshipers of Vishnu)? – and were not satisfied with his answer: Go to the source, go to the texts. All the answers are there! Don’t make judgments before you have fully sought out an answer.

Study which texts? Pray to which Gods? Visit which temples? Where did one start? Hinduism is overwhelming in the plurality of ways it can be approached and analyzed in order to understand, embrace, and live by it. Yet Hinduism appeals to people the way Krishna appeals to the Gopis (Krishna's milkmaid servants): by calling out to the curious individual, singling him out and welcoming him. The umbrella of Hinduism is as all-encompassing as Mt. Govardhan (a Vaishnava holy site); everyone can find their patch of shelter underneath it and, once ready, Krishna guides them out with a customized path to help them advance through the religion, always with love and encouragement.

My foray was an on-campus discussion group that involved copious amounts of free, Indian, vegetarian food and two very friendly Hare Krishna monks in saffron robes, armed with many copies of the Bhagavad Gita. The crowd was casual, the conversation comfortable and the food consummate! Perhaps my priorities were misaligned at the time – my focus being more on the food than on the text – but a fulfilled stomach abets a fulfilled mind, and I was moved to speak up, when my mouth was finally empty.

At first, I felt like I knew more than my counterparts since I knew the premise of the Gita, the principal characters and the subsidiary myths, but with each verse that we explored, I became less concerned with the pace of the pack, and more disarmed by the language of the Gita. Love everyone the same way – your mother the way you would a neighbor, and a stranger the way you would your mother? Dust off the layer of lust that coats your heart and turns love into attachment? The Gita chastised human temperaments, without temper, and revolutionized our discussion group’s thoughts, without starting any fights: we were all Arjunas and Sanjayas, blessed with Krishna and his words just inches away from our ears (next to our plates of pasta and halava!). I was amazed at the potency of the words.

I had encounters with realized souls that demonstrated karma to me just the way Krishna, Narada and others created circumstances for their devotees to interact in and learn from – twice with Radhanath Swami and once with a complete stranger on a New York City bus who, after telling me that my guru would find me, told me that he could see “right through” me, that he knew who I was. I realized that for every thought I devoted to cultivating a consciousness and formulating an awareness, I was being rewarded. A summer internship in India exposed me, once again, to the harsh juxtapositions of luxury and poverty, religious adherence and intolerance, and the frailty of life in a country of 1 billion. I

I questioned Hinduism still further, and received patiently responses from the same monks at Columbia, who helped me put life, mortality and meaningfulness in the perspective of karma and dharma (duty). We glorify the Lord to practice compassion and humility, and Krishna glorifies us for our efforts, creating distractions from the maya (illusion) that surrounds us and allowing us a glimpse of pure interaction.

It was easy to compartmentalize my Gita study into a weekly activity and keep busy with academics, other extra-curricular activities, and the wealth of distraction that New York City had to offer.! But after graduating and starting a full-time job, my thoughts seemed to toggle between tasks at work, and subsequent fatigue at home. Having spent the day staring at a computer screen, I was too tired to read at night. My copy of the Gita sat on a shelf, collecting its own proverbial layer of dust, hiding from me its potential to lessen the stress from my daily routine. This could not last forever, of course; circumstances found me at the Hare Krishna temple, hungry for halava and an honest discussion. I

I found the energy to pick up the Gita again, determined to read it from Chapter 1 to Chapter 12. Comparing the examples of service and compassion in the Gita to my varied interactions at work have shown me how power and control wrongly dominate the workplace – and how easy it is to get caught up in it. Every visit to the Hare Krishna ashram is personal and intimate, while the office can feel like a maze of cubicles. I have re-prioritized once again, to define my attitude towards work with the determination and humility I draw upon when discussing the Gita. I am hearing its language – or noticing its lack thereof – in newspaper headlines about greedy leaders, in lust-filled enterprises, and rejoicing in the examples the Lord puts forth to his devotees when we most need it. I have tasted the endlessness of the Gita, and I have returned to it!

from Grandpa Balabhadra & Grandma Chaya

Thursday, May 21, Lakshmi had an emergency cesarean due to a condition called Preeclampsia.

It is hypertension caused by pregnancy and is life threatening to child and mother.

Janaka Mahajan wanted to let everyone know that she is fine and the baby boy named Balaji is a healthy and peaceful baby.

We know that some devotees were praying for them and we wanted them and others to know all is well.

Thank you so much for your prayers which helped to bring about a healthy positive outcome.

Attached is a picture of Balaji about an hour after he was born.

Itt ülök a Bhakta-sangán, a bhakta kongresszuson. Több prezentációt tekinthetünk meg.

Néhány érdekes téma:

• Hogyan szervezzük át az egyház vezetési rendszerét?
• Melyik területnek kik a vezetői?
• Hogyan lehet a varnasramot a városokban megvalósítani?
• Mi a közösségszolgálati igazgatóság?
• Az öko-völgy program
• Fociznak-e a bhakták?

Néhány fotó a rendezvényről.

Ha ti is készítettetek képeket, esetleg videókat, akkor a commentekben jelezzétek hol lehet elréni.

Köszönöm.

A budapesti és Krisna-völgyi vezetőség területei:

When we take to the spiritual path, we can often suffer from a lot of shame and guilt. As we take up spiritual life, with it goes high ideals and expectations in terms of thought, word and action. However, within us also remain the deep-rooted materialistic desires that we have developed over the years, many of which are opposed to spiritual ideals. Thus there is a moment-to-moment internal battle going on, a battle between what we feel impelled to do and what we know we should be doing.

We may walk away from the material world, philosophically recognizing the futility of the temporary pleasures that are on offer there. However, the spiritual world and all its fulfillment seem far away. Thus, aspiring spiritualists can find themselves stuck in a no man's land. It’s a place from which we look back at the world and materialistic life and think, 'I can't go back there', and a place from which we look ahead to spiritual life and think, 'I can't imagine I will ever get there'. So as pleasure-seeking entities, we become frustrated, neither enjoying material pleasure nor getting the higher taste of spiritual life. The ancient classic Mahabharata says that two types of people are happy: the first is the totally ignorant, and the second is the spiritually perfected. Anyone in between will feel unfulfilled to a greater or lesser degree.

However, for advancing spiritualists there is always incredible hope. They know that intense spiritual practice will purify their consciousness, free them from the bonds of selfishness, and allow them to experience the higher taste of spirituality. And sometimes, when the spiritualists do slip up, they feel guilt and shame at having failed. However, that shame and guilt does not debilitate them and stop them from advancing toward spiritual purity and bliss. To become hopeless in spiritual life is what a no man's land actually is, where one is haunted by guilt, yet cannot make progress. That is very painful to see, and it is something we should always help each other avoid.

(Special thanks to Tattvavit prabhu, one of our senior monks, who edited this post. His encouragement and inspiration has helped me continue my feeble attempts to write on the spiritual subject matter)

Lavanya-mangala-devi dasi: Why do arctic terns fly 22,000 miles each year? How can a fish have both eyes on the same side of its body? What is the meaning of the complex patterns of dances performed by honeybees?

Jaya Gaurasundara dasa: 2300 sf home for sale in Prabhupada Village, NC. Prabhupada Village is a picturesque community in the foothills of NC; is headquarters to the Bhaktivedanta Archives as well as the Festival of India.

By Lalitanatha Dasa

It is very good that the GBC is concerned about the decline in the development of ISKCON farms. But the problem goes deeper than just not enough money and time put into our existing model of what simple and natural living implies.

Inspired by my readings of "Contemplative Prayer" and "Contemplation In A World Of Action" by Thomas Merton

In the final piece from Contemplative Prayer, Merton wraps up his fervent, sincere, and realized meditations on the power and reality of prayer by reminding us once again of the personal and collective vigilance that is needed to go deep into our hearts, where the Supreme Lord awaits on us all.

Merton writes:

"Prayer does no blind us to the world, but it transforms our vision of the world and makes us see it, all men, and all the history of mankind, in the light of God. To pray in spirit and in truth enables us to enter into contact with that infinite love, that inscrutable freedom which is at work behind the complexities and the intricacies of human existence. This does not mean fabricating for ourselves pious rationalizations to explain everything that happens. It involves no surreptitious manipulations of the hard truths of life."

The mood of Merton, a mood we share to our very core here at the Bhaktivedanta Ashram in NYC, is one of engagement, of plugging into the plugged-in world, protected by the strength of our sadhana and our community, but fully conscious, and fully striving to enter like a needle and come out like a plow in the aim of dynamic and revolutionary outreach.

Our weapons are humility and real knowledge-beyond quarrel and hypocrisy, which allow us to shape reality in such a way that hits people where they live-it hits them in their hearts, and with the development of trust and friendship, they can see we are not trying to kid or exploit. In fact, what we do, as spiritualists in this mood, can even be considered a political act. Merton writes:

"One thing is certain: the humility of faith, if it is followed by the proper consequences-by the acceptance of the work and sacrifice demanded by our providential task-will do far more to launch us into the full current of historical reality than the pompous rationalizations of politicians who think they are somehow the directors and manipulators of history.

Politicians may indeed make history, but the meaning of what they are making turns out, inexorably, to have been something in a language they will never understand, which contradicts their own programs and turns all their achievements into an absurd parody of their promises and ideals."

Got that Obama?

Personally, this mood is what I love so much about Merton. His clarity of insight extends to the fabrics of life that we walk on and lie in. From the walls of our monasteries, to the skyscrapers that make up the canopy of the concrete jungle, to the very intimacies of our own living rooms, as spiritual beings, as devotees, to fight against the effects of the age of Kali means to fight against hypocrisy. This fight must begin in our own life of contemplative prayer. Merton writes:

"Prayer must penetrate and enliven every department of our life, including that which is most temporal and transient. Prayer does not despise even the seemingly lowliest aspects of man's temporal existence. It spiritualizes all of them and gives them a divine orientation. But prayer is defiled when it is turned away from God and from the spirit, and manipulated in the interests of group fanaticism.

Such religion is insincere. It is merely a front for greed, injustice, sensuality, selfishness, violence. The cure for this corruption is to restore the purity of faith and the genuineness of Christian love: and this means a restoration of the contemplative orientation of prayer."

In our uncertain times, when we stare the effects of modernity in the face (nuclear weapons, environmental catastrophe, economic collapse, the devaluing of morality and honest expression), we will see that such misinterpretation of real spiritual values has been a big part in our collective failure.

We may be more tempted than ever to say that religion is merely an opiate. This is a cheap way out, and as we push forward in carrying Prabhupada's mission into this century and beyond, we must never forget the courage we need just to be sincere and dedicated in our own personal and collective practices.

We are swimming against so many tides, but we have the full blessings of Guru and Gauranga, and of such great personalities as Merton, in the incredible task ahead of us that is also present to us today.

To insure our own sincerity, and to insure our own practice never falls into the sea of quarrel and hypocrisy that currently is drowning this humble universe, we must go deep into our contemplative prayer, deep into the Holy Name, pouring our hearts out with all of our might.

Merton concludes:

"Without this contemplative basis to our preaching, our apostolate is no apostolate at all, but mere proselytizing to insure universal conformity with our own national way of life.

Without contemplation and interior prayer the Church cannot fulfill her mission to transform and save mankind. Without contemplation, she will be reduced to being the servant of cynical and worldly powers, no matter how hard her faithful may protest they are fighting for the Kingdom of God.

Without true, deep contemplative aspirations, without a total love for God and an uncompromising thirst for his truth, religion tends in the end to become an opiate."

A fascinating piece from the New York Times on recent studies at Columbia University on how the human mind works in relation to the choices that need to be made to thwart the oncoming tide of climate change.

Here's an excerpt...

Debates over why climate change isn’t higher on Americans’ list of priorities tend to center on the same culprits: the doubt-sowing remarks of climate-change skeptics, the poor communications skills of good scientists, the political system’s inability to address long-term challenges without a thunderous precipitating event, the tendency of science journalism to focus more on what is unknown (will oceans rise by two feet or by five?) than what is known and is durably frightening (the oceans are rising). By the time Weber was midway into her presentation, though, it occurred to me that some of these factors might not matter as much as I had thought. I began to wonder if we are just built to fail.

Click here to read the article.

"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."

Taken from Bhajana Kutir #79

After reciting the punar musiko bhava story in 1972 in Los Angeles, Srila Prabhupada immediately explained its relevance. This is the excerpt from that lecture:
"So this mouse also came and begged the saintly person, 'Sir, I am in difficulty. If you give me some blessing?'
'What is that?'
'The cat chases after me always. I'm very unhappy.'
'So what do you want?'
'Now, if you make me a cat, then I can get relief from this thing.'
'All right, you become cat.' So he became cat.
So after few days, again he comes. 'Sir, again I am in trouble.'

read more

Vyasa Puja JPS in Rome

After a long overnight flight from London we have arrived on the tropical island nation of Mauritius 560 miles east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. It was very auspicious that upon landing we were greeted by a government official who said, "Hare Krishna." He then whisked us through the immigration procedures without our having to stand in a line...

Srimad Bhagavatam 11.8.37-40 - The ecstasies of devotional service.

Live right now and for another 20 hours at http://www.iskconlife.tv/. Right now Vish and the Mayapuris are rocking it.

From the chat window:

rieuk; where r u d-vo-ts from
Manu; Alachua, Florida
Manjesh; Toronto, Canada
Ananda; Moscow, Russia
rasik mulji;
rasik mulji;
Sitapati; Brisbane, Australia
Katyayani; Belgium (colombia)
Brinda; Istanbul, Turkey
Manu; Haribol Sitapati Prabhu !!!
rasik mulji; london
Raj; Manchester UK

Satsvarupa dasa Goswami - May 23, 7:05 A.M.

The lifeguard chairs have been erected for Memorial Day weekend. It’s a beautiful morning with warm breezes and sunshine. More people than usual are out walking their dogs. Most of them don’t obey the law to pick up their dogs’ waste, and the beach is littered with poison. Narayana is getting used to waving at all the drivers who waved at Baladeva as they passed. Our guests yesterday missed their directions and wound up at Lewes Beach. Kaulini said she was glad she went there because now she has a better idea of what I write about. She’s been in the yellow submarine also. She said, “Now it’s all visual to me.” She asked me to keep up writing the journal. Every day she reads my journal and Sivarama Swami’s website. Kaisori gave me a copy of Sivarama Maharaja’s new book, which is an introduction to the Krishna in Vrndavana series. I have read the prologue so far—it’s a big book—and I found it interesting. Kaisori gave me the good news that Penguin Books is going to publish two books by Radhanatha Swami. First they’re publishing a book about bhakti, and when his name gets a little established, they are going to reprint his autobiography, A Journey Home, which Mandala Press printed in a limited edition. She said she is happy that a Hare Krishna person will be known widely as spiritual leader, not just within ISKCON. I am happy for him, too, since I loved his autobiography, but for myself, I am, as my ex–college friend Steve Kowit put it, “parochially doomed.” I write from the ISKCON point of view for devotees who are already familiar with Krishna consciousness. I have no desire to change the way I am writing, but I certainly would like to have more readers. Kaisori suggested I advertise more widely by placing ads on many Internet sites, but will they accept my ads? She said they would.

Kaisori observed that I seem to be calm in my yellow submarine, and although she hadn’t seen me in many years, she said I looked well. She also looked well, as did Kaulini and Kalindi.

Many festivals are coming up, and I don’t think I will attend many, since it causes a strain on my health and I’m not so fond of the festival atmosphere. Staying at home, I have just enough time to finish a journal entry and do a little reading (such as Sivarama Swami’s new book).

Fatally parochially? Maybe not. Maybe some day I will have more readers. Even though, according to Murray Mednick, I commit another grave mistake if I want to be popular with many readers by presenting a problem but then quickly “wrapping it up in the canon.” But I have orders from Prabhupada when he sent me to Boston. He said, “Sound off the Hare Krishna cannon.”

8:45 A.M.

“Our Prayer,” by Albert Ayler on tenor saxophone, with Donald Ayler on trumpet, Michael Sampson on violin, Bill Falwell and Henry Grimes on bass, and Beaver Harris on drums. Albert Ayler was a very religous person. He was one of the most cacaphonous and dissonant saxophonists playing in the 1960s. He would screech on his instrument at the top of his lungs, and his music was not accessible to a lot of people, but he had his own cult of followers. This recording was made at the Village Vanguard in 1966, when I was living with the Swami. Earlier that year, I actually saw Albert Ayler live at the Village Vanguard with this group and enjoyed it very much. “Our Prayer” starts very slowly and sounds like a Salvation Army group standing on the street at Christmastime. Nothing more than that. But it’s got a lot of feeling in it. Albert Ayler juices it with his tenor saxophone with arpeggios and other decorations so that it’s different from the Salvation Army band, but it’s got that same public religious feeling. They’re praying to God. It’s their prayer. You can almost envision people walking by them on the street and dropping coins into a metal bucket. I don’t think Albert Ayler had much more money than that either. Finally, he committed suicide by drowning himself in the East River in New York City. Halfway through the piece, they drop the Salvation Army facade and start screeching. The trumpet especially cries out like a person in duress. But throughout, they keep it solemn and mournful and prayerful. Albert Ayler has a very enticing tone. He’s calling to the people and asking them to pray to God with him. It’s truly religious. More than a jazz piece. It’s a group prayer session. They play all together spiritually and without any frivolity. But it’s far-out music nonetheless. They get applause afterwards.

“Black and Tan Fantasy,” written by Duke Ellington. Earl Hines plays the piano, another old-time song. It was recorded in January of 1966. Johnny Hodges plays the tenor saxophone in his famous old-time style. It’s got classical Duke Ellington feeling to it, smooth and elegant, soft and slow. It’s definitely dated music. Pre-bop. There are quite a few musicians in the band. “Black and tan fantasy” refers to the ethnic quality on Duke Ellington’s mind. Peewee Russell plays the clarinet—another old-time great. The beat is slow and steady. The source, as always, is Krishna. Whether the mood is of the ‘20s, ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50s, or ‘60s, all jazz music originates from the Blues King, Syamasundara, whose body is dark, like a monsoon cloud.

“Journey in Satchidananda.” This features Alice Coltrane (John Coltrane’s wife) on harp. Pharoah Sanders plays the soprano saxophone, and Rasheed Ali plays the drums. It’s a slow spiritual journey. I believe Alice Coltrane had a connection with Swami Satchidananda. She met with Srila Prabhupada in his room at Krishna-Balarama Mandir and had a good talk with him. She was submissive and respectful. She also played her harp at a Ratha-yatra festival concert in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. She was something of a guru herself, with a following in San Francisco. She passed away a few years ago. A friend of the Hare Krishnas. The music has a good kirtana feeling to it. If they could just have added to it some singers of the Hare Krishna mantra. Even without that, it sounds spiritual, like a kirtana band. A person named Tulsi is playing the tamboura. Another person is playing bells and tambourine. Alice Coltrane’s harp produces heavenly music. The rhythm section is not like jazz but a slow, spiritual “waltz.” Something you could dance the Swami Step to. You could stand up and hold your arms in the air while an arati was going on and dance to this. It would fit in in an ISKCON temple. Alice Coltrane was a spiritual person seeking the absolute truth, along with her husband, John. She played with him in his final phase of music, where he explored in an area that very few could follow. But she stayed with him, playing the piano and harp through those difficult-to-understand passages. On this piece, she’s more a regular kirtana girl.

“Hard Work.” This is John Handy on alto saxophone and vocal. There are quite a few instrumentalists with him. “Hard Work” is accompanied with hand claps. We all have to perform hard work, and it’s good to sing along with it. “Hard work” is the only lyrics to this song. There are congas. Electric guitar and electric keyboard. It’s like a chain gang song. It’s a blues. They don’t do hard work in the spiritual world, but they may play music like this because the music doesn’t sound like hard work. It sounds like rejoicing, with clapping hands. “Unknown vocals.” Everyone’s joining in to a nice, folksy feel. You could imagine the cowherd boys dancing around in a circle with Krishna singing “Hard Work,” although for them, hard work is just play—taking the cows out to the fields, thousands at a time, and keeping them in check. It was hard work, but for them it was fun. And for these musicians, the music of “Hard Work” sounds like fun, too. The electrical instruments are intriguing, and the congas make it like outdoors in the park, Tompkins Square Park, a group of people sitting around having a session, having a good time. Like Krishna and the cowherds. They don’t now what hard work is. They only know fun and rejoicing with Krishna, their leader. Taking out unlimited numbers of calves and cows isn’t hard work to them, it’s play. Everything is play. So it’s ironic that they should sing this chant, “hard work,” while they play with their cows and calves, pasturing them on the grounds near Govardhana, pasturing them in the grasses and wrestling with their leader, Krishna. Sometimes they become so unaware that they should be working that they let the cows wander off, and Krishna has to round them up again. These boys don’t know hard work. All they know is play. The chant fades out as the boys wander off deeper into the forests, led by Govinda.

10:30 A.M.

My Dear Lord Krishna...

I’m writing to You to praise Your glorious qualities, to thank You for Your gifts to me, to petition You to save me from calamities.

One cannot praise You enough because You are too glorious for words. As the old popular song says, “You’re just too marvelous,/ Too marvelous for words/ Like ‘glorious,’ ‘glamorous,’/ And that old standby amorous.... You’re much too much, and just to very, very,/ To ever be, to ever be in Webster’s Dictionary.” [From “Too Marvelous for Words,” lyrics by Richard Whiting and Johnny Mercer.] You are described in part, however, through the voluminous, perfect Vedic literatures, there are many uttamaslokas, all glorious words of prayers are made by great saints and sages. For example, in the Bhagavad-gita, Arjuna declares, param brahma param dhama/ pavitram paramam bhavan: “You are the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the ultimate abode, the purest, the Absolute Truth.” (Bg. 10.12) In their intimate praises of You, some of which are not even recorded in Vedic literatures, the gopis praise Your beautiful form—Your lotus eyes, Your hue like that of a beautiful rain cloud, standing gorgeously in threefold bending form and holding a flute to Your lips. Krsnadasa Kaviraja has effusively descibed Your body, as well as Radharani, exhausting the metaphors of Sanksrit poetry in describing Your bodily features. The end? There is no end. One can go on praising You throughout eternity and not exhaust Your praiseworthy qualities. One of Your greatest qualities is that You are bhakta-vatsala, especially inclined to Your own devotees. You love them more than You love Yourself. You give to them Your own association, Your intimate love exchanges which leave them in blissful states of prema that are indescribable. So the way You pleasae Your devotees is one of Your most praiseworthy characteristics. I praise You for capturing me and keeping me as one of Your devotees, despite my many discrepancies. Thank You for Your compassion and Your forgiveness. You have been very kind to me over the years, letting me serve Srila Prabhupada, which is a great boon. To render service to the pure devotee pleases You, and You have let me do that, so I praise You for being so kind to me. I praise You for giving us all the wonderful Vedic literatures, written by Srila Vyasadeva and in recent times, by the followers of Lord Caitanya, the Six Goswamis, Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, and the other great acharyas in disciplic succession. Each one has outdone the other in their praises of You in verses and essays and books. We are fortunately deluged by these praises of You. When we read them, we come alive in appreciation of You. So I praise You for giving us all this wonderful nectar about Yourself. Some of it You have spoken directly, as in Your words in Bhagavad-gita, some of it You have left for Your devotees, such as Srila Vyasadeva and Sukadeva Goswami, to describe in Srimad-Bhagavtam, the spotless Purana. Some of it You have left for Your more modern representatives. I praise You for speaking through the Bhaktivedanta purports. Prabhupada used to say that he did not write the books himself but that You spoke through them. So I thank You for giving us Prabhupada’s books, which are actually Your own books, suitable for people of the present age of Kali.

Just today in Brhad-Bhagavatamrta, we read how Maharaja Pariksit was appreciative of the curse given to him by the son of Samika Rsi. Because Maharaja Pariksit inadvertently insulted the sage, Samika Rsi’s son cursed him to die in seven days. This produced a fear in Maharaja Pariksit, which led to his renunciation of all material life. He gave up his kingdom and family and opulence and went to the banks of the holy river Ganga to hear the Srimad-Bhagavatam from Sukadeva Goswami, which granted him and all who listened liberation and the path back to Godhead. I praise You for creating situations which bring about detachment from the world in ways that sometimes seem awkward to the persons involved but which are to their ultimate betterment and salvation.

The devotees who please You the most with their praises are the devotees of Vrndavana. You allow them to associate with You so intimately. Their praises touch Your heart. You are not as praised by the eloquent prayers of the Upanisads or the prayers of the demigods, which sometimes even bore You when You are absorbed in play with Your cowherd boyfriends. Nevertheless, You accept the praises of sincere religionists of all different faiths who praise You as their supreme master and the creator and maintainer of the universe. Whenver sincere praise is offered, You accept it graciously.

That is why I can presume to praise You also. I do not have depth of bhakti or eloquent words or deep understanding of Your glories. But from my personal reservoir of appreciation, I praise You as the Lord of my life. I praise You as the God who has kind intentions toward all Your living entities and who wants to bring them all back to the spiritual world for a life of eternity, bliss and knowledge with You. You are so tolerant that You have to put up with the disrespect of countless living beings who deny You and blaspheme You. I praise You for Your tolerance and Your willingness to accept sinners who repent and again come under Your shelter. I praise Your pure devotees who do this work for You in this world, working among the fallen souls to remind them of Your glories and the necessity of surrendering to You. Please accept my prayer of praise, although it falls so short of what I should be offering You. I petition You to teach me from within and through the books of the acharyas to appreciate You more and learn how to praise You in a way befitting of Your servitors. All glories to You, the Lord of the universe! All glories to You, the darling son of Nanda and Yasoda! All glories to You, the boyfriend of Your exalted consort, Srimati Radharani! And all glories to You, the well-wisher of all Your devotees and the well-wisher of all living entities, who are ultimately Your loving servitors, although they do not know it because they are covered by maya. Please remove the blindness that prevents them from appreciating You, and let us all gather at Your lotus feet in praise of Your innumerable qualities and Your love for us.

from the yellow submarine, my bhajana kutir #80→

Blesssed are the Cheesemakers

Emily from Nunawading, Victoria, Australia, asks:

"Hello. I'm doing a project at school on 'Cheese Making'. Can you tell me all the steps to how cheese is made? Thanks!"

Hi Emily, you can make your own homemade cheese, a very simple variety.

For information on rennet (rennin)

Here's a detailed description of the process.

FUNDAMENTALS OF CHEESEMAKING

A key factor in natural cheese is its selective concentration of the insoluble components of milk. Heat, acid, salt and bacteria both jointly and singly play effective roles in transferring the concentrate into an acceptable, fresh food of predictable quality, or later in conjunction with other micro-organisms and enzymes, into a cured food.

Natural cheese can be classified into groups according to its moisture content, age, type of ripening agents or the rheological qualities of the cheese. For example, classification of natural cheese based on moisture is divided into four groups, very high H2O (cottage cheese), high H2O (Mozzarella cheese), medium H2O (Cheddar cheese), and low H2O (Parmesan cheese). The moisture levels range from 80% to 13%.

The following seven steps are used for most of the 18 distinct variables of natural cheese making.

1. Setting the milk

The first step in basic cheese making is to prepare warm milk with starter and rennet extract or paste, causing the milk to curd into a block. This curd may either be set with starter only, causing an acid iso-electric casein, or a sweeter, calcium paracasein curd, set with both starter and rennet extract. The sweeter curd will materialise in only 15 to 30 minutes at about 32 degrees Celsius however, the acid iso-electric casein curd will take approximately 5 to 16 hours to curd at a given temperature.

The optimum pasteurised temperature is 161.6 degrees F (72 degrees Celsius) for 16 seconds only. Pasteurised milk is used for fresh cheese, however raw, heated or pasteurised milk may be set for ripened cheese.

The rennin extract is added to the milk, causing the milk curd, however vibrations may cause a non-homogeneous curd. A milk container protecting against light is necessary because rennin is unstable to light. Also, it is inactivated at normal pasteurisation temperatures and is most stable at pH 4.0.

2. Cutting the curd

The horizontal-wire knife is initially used to cut the curd into strips using a swing-gate motion. It is only used to cut in one direction, lengthwise. The vertical-wire knife is then placed in the curd and moved in two directions, the long and cross directions. Cutting the curd increases the surface area of the curd.

3. Cooking the Curds

Cooking the curd is generally defined as: heating the curd and whey for a specific time, while agitating. This process may be accomplished by using direct steam, jacketed water, or radio-frequency. Cooking the curd serves many purposes such as contracting the curd particles, driving out the free whey, and increasing lactic acid production. This suppresses spoilage micro-organisms, and influences the final cheese moisture.

4. Draining Whey

Separating the whey from the curds is accomplished by using a metal strainer or a sieve. Draining time will vary from 15 to 60 minutes, depending on the vat size. The whey acidity determines when to begin draining. This process also allows more time for lactic acid production.

5. Knitting and transforming the Curds

The type of cheese being processed and it's texture will determine the time period of this application. During this time, lactic acid is accumulated causing the curd to change chemically and provide the correct moisture content. This will also allow microbial constituency for curing.

6. Salting of Curds

The purpose of salting the cheese is to improve its flavour, texture and appearance and to suppress the growth of spoilage micro-organisms. When and how much salt is added is dependent on the type of cheese being processed.

7. Pressing

This processes gives the cheese its characteristic shape, texture, and extrudes free whey. The cheese is placed in a metal or wooden vat, usually with some type of weight placed on it to cause pressure. The standard equipment used is the horizontal, hydraulic, pressure plate type presses. Adjusting the specifications of the previous steps will cause different varieties of cheese.

Our album Ten Million Moons is up on iTunes in the new New and Noteworthy section (see photo). We are super excited and greatful to everyone of you for helping push the album up there. Please leave us a review on the album page and create an iMix using songs from our album and your other favorite artists. This helps us spread the word.

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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.

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

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

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

View Larger Map

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

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.