namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

This is the technique I use for protecting my wedding ring and car key while on harinam and playing the mrdanga. It's a carabiner that I got from Mitre 10, a hardware store.

Vrajadhama das played accordion on this harinam.

The Yoga Asana Championship is in 12 days time in Melbourne, Australia. The Sitapati Bishnu Charan Cup Challenge has been a lot of work and has involved a lot of people. We'd like to thank a few of the sponsors and supporters who helped us get this far:

REGULAR exercise can reduce a woman's risk of cancer, but the benefits may slip away if she gets too little sleep.
The study involving 5968 women in the US state of Maryland confirmed previous findings that people who do regular physical activity are less likely to develop cancer.

But when the researchers looked at the women ages 18 to 65 who were in the upper half in terms of the amount of physical exercise they got per week, they found that sleep appeared to play an important role in cancer risk.

"We will come out tomorrow in numbers this world has not yet seen," said Amy Balliett, the co-founder of JoinTheImpact.com, in a news release posted on the Web site Friday. See iReporters' experiences in cities nationwide

JoinTheImpact.com, which organized the rallies,was established three days after Election Day, when the three states passed the ballot initiatives.

The Vedic culture relies heavily on learning through hearing. One of the primary pramanas or sources of evidence in Vedic epistemology is sabda-pramana or "hearing from authority".

Here's an interesting case study in centralized organizations versus decentralized ones. See my post on the book "The Spider and the Starfish" from mid-year for some more background on that dichotomy.

David Haslam has put together a proposal for the ISKCON GBC to create an online ISKCON Guru database.

Yesterday I was feeling listless and demotivated after mangal-arati, the 4.30 am spiritual program at the local Hare Krishna temple.

There is no daylight savings in Queensland, so the sun now comes up during the program. This places it a long time after the brahma-muhurta hour - that's a 48 minute period about an hour and a half before sunrise that is the most potent time for spiritual practice. Before I went to NZ it was dark until after the program finished.

I'm going to do a series of posts on health tips that I've uncovered in my research.

I note that the price of oil has dropped to US$59 today. It was $140 a barrel not so long ago.

Did anyone else notice how it went up, then there was a market crash, right before the US elections?

Today I'm doing a "Topgrading" Exercise. It involves going across my direct reports and grading them as "A", "B", or "C" players. The goal of this is to create an organisation of A players. I look at the C players - the low performers, and I ask myself: "Is this person misplaced? In need of further training? Not challenged?" I try to find some reason why this person is low in their performance, and move them to a higher range of performance in their role.

The macro economic situation can be confusing and difficult to grasp. When it comes time to vote for a candidate based on their position on economic reform I'd like to share you with you a few simple pointers from my PhD (Prabhupada Hearing Degree) in economics. You don't have to read all of Srila Prabhupada's books to get this information, just the commentary to the First Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam.These are the actual fundamentals of economics:

I found this satire news article through my Google news alert for "Hare Krishna":

Hare Krishnas split due to 'musical differences'

First of all watch Peter Schiff predict the 2008 economic meltdown with crystal clarity in August 2006:

And then check out his recent economic analysis of President-elect Obama:

From within the US it might look like Obama advocates and represents change. I mean after all, the guy's skin is black, right? That's a different color from the last guy...

In this fiery and funny talk, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what's wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it's putting the entire planet at risk.

My sincere prayers are with H.H. Jayapataka Swami at this time of a challenge to the physical health of his body.

Maharaja has always been very kind and encouraging to me, and his disciples have also.

I wish Maharaja a speedy recovery and many years of continued service to the devotees of ISKCON and the people of this world. If this doesn't happen, I am sure that his service will continue anyway, in another body.

Sudarshan Yajna for H.H Jayapataka Swami at ISKCON Brisbane. Sunday 9am, at the conclusion of the 24 hr kirtan.

If you're in Brisbane this weekend here are a few options for things to do and see:

Global 24 hour kirtan.

Saturday November 8th 9am - Sunday November 9th 9am at ISKCON Brisbane

"The Joy of Dharma - A Definitive Guide to Happiness" presentation. Two nights only!

While in New Zealand on my recent trip, and looking for food ingredients in the supermarket with my mother, I had this realization:

Religious traditions with dietary restrictions such as Islam and Judaism have terms which describe their otherwise complex and arbitrary (to outsiders) lists of do and don'ts. In the case of Islam approved foods are halal. In the case of Judaism the term is kosher.

Today at lunch I talked with Sista Shree. I apologised for not being able to find the kirtan last night at My Health Yoga, and promised to be there next week - now that I know that the entrance is around the back.

We got to talking about Obama. My mate Samson at work is from Kenya and we managed to convince him that it was his duty to buy the office sweets to celebrate (ha!).

Prahlad rocks the mrdanga at the recent Vyasa puja retreat in NZ. Heh.

Click on the picture for a bigger version. Go here to see the best of the photos of the retreat taken by Dr. Candidasa.

My rocking Nokia E61i phone has suddenly started playing up.

It ran out of battery power yesterday while on a call. i don't think I've ever run the battery right out like that.

So when I restarted the phone I got a message: "Phone start-up failed. Contact retailer."

Not cool, although I can get another phone easily since it's a work one.

Global 24 hr Kirtan during Kartik

In Brisbane - Saturday November 8th, 9am - Sunday November 8th, 9am @ the ISKCON Brisbane temple, 95 Bank Rd, Graceville.

Has anyone else noticed that only the American Vaisnavas make a big deal about voting and who their national leader is?

I've never read any blog entries from Vaisnavas in other countries about their national elections....

What does that mean?