namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

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.

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.

Live from his hideout deep behind the former Bamboo Curtain, David Jorm riffs on life in China and the re-introduction of varnasrama social organisation in a modern context.

David Jorm on China and Varnasrama (ogg, 5 MB)

Mother Gandhari dasi writes me from Vancouver, Canada:

You will be happy to know that actually there is a very nice and relevant engagement ceremony in the Vedic Tradition which the followers are still performing very elaborately. Here is the description for your pleasure.

The Relatives of the groom are invited at the bride's family where are equal number of relatives (all of the couples uncles, aunts from both sides of the parents and all the cousins and grand parents) are present.

An interesting article from a recent edition of Leadership Wired, on the subject of Criticism. Here's an excerpt:

Americans have a warped view of criticism. Unfortunately, most of us see criticism almost exclusively in a negative light. We dish it out tactlessly, use it to tear down rivals, and attack others with it even when we have no authority to do so.

In the different yugas different conditions prevail.

In Satya yuga, the "age of truth", conditions are such that the balance of power lies with the brahmanas. Everyone is a paramhamsa in this age and there is no varnashram, so everyone is a brahmana. In this age the process of self-realization is meditation.

In Dvapara-yuga, the "second age", which usually follows Satya-yuga, the process of self-realization is Deity Worship. In this age the balance of power lies with the Ksatriyas.

Here is an example of applying some of the principles employed by Bill O'Reilly in his Sunsara Taylor / Ron Luce interview [link] to the recent "Hare Krishna Diary" incident. It would not placate the cries of the lynch mob for blood, but it wouldn't absorb the agenda of the complainants into the GBC response either; and it would focus on process, maintaining a metastructure that can accommodate diversity within it, and raising the tone of the debate.

At the root this is a discipline issue.

Vedic Civilization means both Manu Samhita and Kama Sutra.

Trying to implement a "Vedic civilization" with only either one or the other is a fantasy and is "the logic of half a hen" ardha-kukkya nyaya.

That's why this "men and women" is the province of grhastas and adminstrators, not brahmacaris and sannyasis.

• Bhakta Corey (aka Caitanya das) mixes his own adolescent immaturity and lack of real life experience with his promotion of Srila Prabhupada's statements on social issues.
• His detractors mix their own dislike of Srila Prabhupada's statements on social issues with their critique of his presentation.
• The GBC statement fails to make a distinction between these things.

A couple of weeks ago Madana Gopal das and Asi-kunda devi dasi were married here in Brisbane.

Janakaraj prabhu just sent me through some photos, and I retrieved a couple that I took. I forgot to put the SD card in my camera that day, so there were only a couple of photos, which I found on the internal memory of the camera.

Just after the wedding ceremony. I arrived toward the end, as I was setting up the sound system and instruments in the reception hall.

Actually Rick's talking about "renewal", but points number 5 and 6, in fact all of them, relate to my recent piece on ISKCON Constitution.com

Here are Rick's points, via Dave Ferguson:

When God wants to renew a church, a country, a movement he always takes you through five moves:

Part of being "inclusive", innit? :-)

To relieve that "burning of the universe" feeling... here's something about what I've been up to.

On Tuesday night Prahlad and I dropped by the Shabazz School of Self Defense, run by local Master Warrior Ali Shabazz. Ali Shabazz is also known by the name Abhilasa dasa. In addition to being a student of martial arts traditions he is also a student of the ancient Vedic spiritual tradition, and was one of the youngest of the disciples of the great world teacher Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

Madhava Gosh's piece on annotations got taken to pieces by Pandu [1 and 2] when it appeared on Dandavats.com in the context of the resolution 311 conversation.

Here is one of the unpublished comments that I submitted to Dandavats before commentary was officially closed:

This is not about the 4th Canto’s rape quote. That one was selected as the least controversial, from a devotee point of view, to make the proposal more easy to defend in public debate.

It wasn't breakfast, but it was good. Vegan pizza and roasted sweet potato wedges with pesto.

It's a yoga retreat, but the food is a big part of it - you are what you eat! Here's Chris getting dinner.

Nerina came on Saturday morning.

Hey, congratulations Ali Krishna dd! And congratulations also to Arca das (formerly Bhakta Oliver). Australia represent! :-)

This is a photo of my homeboy Raivata das with Ratnabhusana prabhu, shot in New Dwaraka, Los Angeles, a few years ago.

Ratnabhusana prabhu is the devotee who makes the Balaram mrdangas. He made the yellow mrdanga that you see me playing on harinam and in kirtans. I picked it up from him when I passed through New Dwaraka in 2001, on the way to South America.

Prahlad gets some instructions from H.H. Indradyumna Swami

Corey, it's not that there are people called "liberals" in ISKCON who think that everyone is equal. If you read Srila Prabhupada's books you'll find out that these people are called "impersonalists". They are the kind of people who think that there is no difference between, say, a new bhakta and a twice-initiated brahmana.

Bhakta Corey missed the post where I explained why his blog feed was dropped.

The format here is accountable authors who talk about what they are doing and what they are thinking.

I specifically set up and structured the policies of Planet ISKCON to make it speak with a whole person, human voice.

Recently I've been involved in some discussions about Vaisnava satire. There are a few sites around that specialize in Vaisnava satire, and others that frequently use satire as a rhetorical device.

From the Wikipedia entry on satire:

Welcome back Bhakta Corey! I wondered what had happened to you. I hope that you are recovering ok from your bout of malaria.

As Krishna-kirti prabhu is fond of pointing out, we bring our previous conditioning into Krishna consciousness with us when we come, and it can take some time for us to become aware of it and "decontaminated".

A "separatist" cannot really participate in community, by definition...

The worship of Deities in the temple by a separatist, with a motive for material enjoyment, fame and opulence, is devotion in the mode of passion.

PURPORT

It is a symptom of a cultured civilized human being that they can disagree without disrespect.