namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

Further to the previous post - my observation is that in her 20s a female is able to use her physical characteristics to attract partners. Once she goes into her 30s she needs to rely more on her character. Unfortunately, many women endowed with positive and powerful physical characteristics don't feel any need to invest in that, until it's too late...

• Claims 30+ single women have lonely future
• Book is creating heated debate
• Suggests setlling for Mr Second Best

WOMEN searching for Mr Right should do it in their 20s or risk ending up lonely in their 30s.

Or so says author Lori Gottlieb, who has caused a storm in the United States for encouraging single women in their 30s to settle for Mr Second Best or even Mr Right Now.

Her book, Marry Him: The Case For Settling For Mr Good Enough, is creating a heated debate.

by Akruranatha das

I was very happy to see Niscala dasi's comments (Srila Prabhupada is Our Martin Luther, Dec. 29) to Hare Krishna dasi's article (Waiting for Iskcon's Martin Luther, Chakra, Dec. 25).

I was sorry to see the frustration and disillusionment with the whole ISKCON project that Hare Krishna dasi seemed to be expressing. Even though I've never met Hare Krishna Prabhu face to face, my first reaction upon reading her article was to want to go visit her wherever she lives and try to reassure her and listen sympathetically to her complaints. Surely her frustration must be due to a whole series of bad experiences and not only from one suggestion about "membership" raised by H.H. Sivarama Maharaja at a European GBC meeting (see: HH Sivarama Swami on Sex by Sita-pati to listen to Maharaja's podcast), which seems to have been not very well received by many major ISKCON constituencies and probably is not likely to be adopted or enforced. Hopefully Sivarama Maharaja's proposal will spark some constructive dialogue, as it already seems to be doing.

Hare Krishna!

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Srila Prabhupada used to say that keeping cows is the way to solve our economic problems: “according to Vedic economics, one is considered to be a rich man by the strength of his store of grains and cows. With only these two things, cows and grain, humanity can solve its eating problem. Human society needs only sufficient grain and sufficient cows to solve its economic problems” (SB 3.2.29) yet in almost every project for cow protection in ISKCON we see the request for donations.

Welcome to your new vending machine!

Jeremy Page, Delhi

Does your Pepsi lack pep? Is your Coke not the real thing? India's Hindu nationalist movement apparently has the answer: a new soft drink made from cow urine.

Are we aware of the problems of individuals coming out of Brahmacarya life into Grhastha?

Should they be supported, guided?

It is without a shadow of a doubt that temple life is the best, but practicality means that a majority will leave and take up household life.

The transition can be difficult especially when it comes to the job market and finding the balance of work commitments and devotional life something that temple/centre living does not trainee individuals for (this I am lead to believe from what individuals have told me).

Ever wonder why in the well-established liberal democracies all over the world the institution of marriage tends to be in shambles? Here's what John Stuart Mill, one of modern liberalism's foundational thinkers, has to say about it:

The law of servitude in marriage is a monstrous contradiction to all the principles of the modern world, and to all the experience through which those principles have been slowly and painfully worked out. It is the sole case, now that negro slavery has been abolished, in which a human being in the plentitude of every faculty is delivered up to the tender mercies of another human being, in the hope forsooth that this other will use the power solely for the good of the person subjected to it. Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house.

The Subjection of Women

by Vasu Murti das

In your book "They Shall Not Hurt Or Destroy” you say a few years ago Norm Phelps came to the conclusion, such as I myself have, that the animal rights movement will never succeed until we 'convert' the churches, mosques and synagogues to our cause. Is this also your point of view?

Yes. I would like to see organized religion take up the struggle for animal rights. Religion has been wrong before. It has often been said that on issues such as women's rights and human slavery, religion has impeded social and moral progress. It was a Spanish Catholic priest, Bartolome de las Casas, who first proposed enslaving black Africans in place of the Native Americans who were dying off in great numbers.

The church of the past never considered human slavery to be a moral evil. The Protestant churches of Virginia, South Carolina, and other southern states here in the U.S. actually passed resolutions in favor of the human slave traffic.

by Ravindra Svarupa das

In the last two postings we have been considering a letter Srila Prabhupada wrote in 1972 concerning the nature of power. A devotee had written Prabhupada with misgivings about competition in activities of preaching. To this apparently simple and down-to-earth question, Prabhupada gave a reply that rose quickly to ultimate philosophical principles. Prabhupada's presentation is brilliantly compact; I have been unpacking it somewhat.