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It is Tuesday afternoon and a day of rest. Peace and quiet reign beneficently over the Philadelphia temple as we recover from the hubbub of the holiday weekend. In this case the original meaning of "holiday" actually applies: "holy day." For us, the holiday is the day we work the hardest. Since our hard work is exclusively for the pleasure of the Lord, however, it produces no karma. (In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna defines karma as work that generates future material bodies.) In this case, then, our karma-less holiday is a foretaste of the permanent vacation from mrityu-samsara, the treadmill of birth and death in the world.

Ali Asalim Air Base, Kuwait

 I am sitting in Kuwait at the moment, having finished fifeteen months in combat, the time I have here is a very slow pace. The operational tempo I am use to is slowing down, making more time in my life for devotional activities.

We arrived at 0400 hrs and were processed. Afterwards I wanted to stay awake for the long flight, but there was a problem—our plane was broken down in the States.  Oh well, I thought, let me go and walk around.

This is an amazing clip available on youtube about association, well edited and put together, it’s a must to be checked out

Watch Video

by Ravindra Svarupa das

The Sparks of God

The soul, or self (atma), is described as a separated, minute fragment of God, the Supersoul (paramatma). God is like a fire; the individual souls, sparks of the fire. As the analogy suggests, the self and the Superself are simultaneously one with and different from each other. They are the same in quality, for both the soul and the Supersoul are brahman, spirit. Yet they differ in quantity, since the Superself (param brahman—"supreme brahman"—in Bhagavad-gita 10.12) is infinitely great while the individual selves are infinitesimally small.

by Kaunteya das

In the temple where I am at the moment there is Srila Prabhupada's room. Actually Srila Prabhupada visited twice this temple, and therefore his room is "really" his room. There is also a Deity sitting in the room (in the "holding the translation microphone" mudra), and in front of the deity sit, day and night, brooms and other cleaning utensils.

by Ravindra Svarupa das

In this essay, Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu describes his involvement in ISKCON's guru reform movement, instrumental in ending the "zonal acarya system," the dark ages into which ISKCON descendet soon after Srila Prabhupada's disappearance from this planet.

Analysing what went wrong with ISKCON at that time, Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu arrives at conclusions that are important to today's issues as well.

"The point is that the difficulties that precipitated the guru reform movement are intimately connected with psychological patterns and styles of relationships that began to establishing themselves from the beginning. These are grounded in the inability of many devotees to acknowledge and deal fruitfully with their own spiritual shortcomings and failures, or, in traditional vocabulary, their inability to execute the process of anartha-nivrtti (the eradication of "unwanted things" from the heart)."

And while the zonal acarya era is a thing of the past, ISKCON, the institution and we, it's members, would do well to apply the remedial measures he recommended at that time in our own lives and spheres of influence.

"...I concluded that the only way I could responsibly conduct research on such a loaded subject was to attempt to entrust myself to the guidance of Supersoul, the indwelling guide and director of intelligence. I feared more than anything else my own stupidity. I was the Straw Man, and I needed a brain. I decided to entrust myself to Prabhupada's instructions for attaining direction from Supersoul. Thus, as a remedial measure, I undertook to rigorously restore my sadhana to a strict level." ...

"At the beginning of the reform movement, I tried to show how within ISKCON concealment of failure leads to isolation. This principle holds as much for relations among communities as among individuals. Progress in spiritual life, individually and institutionally, depends first of all on the frank acknowledgement of shortcoming, errors, and mistakes. Without that, all "progress" is mere bluff."

Here at ISKCON Silicon Valley we are in the middle of our Janmastami Vyasa Puja Sankirtan Festival, which is another two weekend event. We've completed the first weekend and we are heading into the second. Below are the emails that Vaisesika Prabhu has sent out to inspire us to perform the sankirtan yajna.

As I sat overlooking the small Welsh Valley village were I live one thing occurred to me the importance of BOXES in our lives.

We live in a box, and we watch or listen to a box.
We then get into a box, this takes us to work we like to call it a car or public transport.

We work in a box or use boxes for work, surrounded by boxes that contain instruments for us to use or boxes to help us produce write or communicate.

Mother Mitravinda is also a soldier, she joined the Army some time ago and has made the transition to her first assignment. Below is a letter she sent today about some preaching she is doing.

"...Sitting there in the motor pool I was able to give a book report and tell of the pastimes of Gajendra. The soldiers were so excited that i called BBT and ordered more books, I was low and need to stock up again."

Today is Rupa Goswami's disappearance day. It was also the day of the last program in Iraq. This program was with the Indian-bodied contract workers here on the base. While going over material to discuss during the class it made perfect sense to speak about the pastimes of this pure soul, Srila Rupa Goswami. ...

But to my amazement more people kept coming, and more and more! When the program started the place was packed, there was no sitting room. I made a remark that all of Mosul is in there, and one man said "Prabhu, this is the last program, everyone is here because we don't know if a devotee will ever be in Mosul again."

by Kaunteya das

The building has some unofficial affectation at officially representing ISKCON in town, and we were shocked to observe some of the incongruities in appearance and accommodation, towering among them the inappropriateness of the bathroom facilities.

There has been some confusion in my mind lately and some sadness. One friend has decided to go brahmacari (not officialy even, he lives at home with his parents still). To him brahmacari means not talking to any ladies at all. Not the ones who he used to be good friends with, not the ones who introduced him to Krishna in the first place. Is this fanaticism? Is this pleasing to Krishna when many delicate feelings of other devotees are being hurt and tears are being shed?

by Gauragopala das

In April 1972, the Melbourne City Council in Australia began a campaign to try and move the Hare Krishna devotees away from the city streets. This struggle with the Council would continue on for another three years.

Not only were we now continuously harassed on the streets by the Council, we were also harassed in our own Temple with middle of the night Police raids looking for devotees who had never paid their fines for chanting on the streets, distributing books, and performing drama plays in the City square.

Photo: Kurma Prabhu being dragged away to jail for chanting Hare Krishna on the streets of Melbourne, Australia in the early seventies.

I was approached by one officer in my Squadron, she wanted to relay a story about an event that happen to her lately. She told me she was at headquarters and two senior sergeants were standing at the smart box that is set up in the little recreation center, holding two books. She said oh, great those books again.

They asked her, "Ma'am, do you know what these books about?" She said "Yes, I do. They are from Sergeant Sonnenberg."

by Kaunteya das

Competing brands of Gaudiya-vaisnavism at times claim that Srila Prabhupada only gave the basics, and that ISKCON people need to take shelter in their representatives to accede to higher dimensions of bhakti.

I beg to disagree. Besides the insulting and indefensible remark that ISKCON's Founder-Acarya didn't provide his followers with enough directions to achieve whatever is there to achieve, I would propose that ISKCON—or at least a good percentage of its members—need to go in a different direction. My observation is that devotees would tremendously benefit by absorbing themselves in the narrations of Mahabharata and Ramayana, thus imbibing the fundamental ethical values presented therein.

Prayer

I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in, and invite God, and his Angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his Angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door.

John Donne (1572-1631)

Love

To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)

Romeo:
What shall I swear by?

Juliet:
Do not swear at all;
Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,
Which is the god of my idolatry,
And I'll believe thee.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Austerity

The greater the pain, the greater the gain.

(pleeon kopos, polu kentos)
Ignatius of Antioch (35-110)

by Kaunteya das

With this post I officially inaugurate a campaign against the overusage of the word ‘wonderful’ in the Krishna consciousness movement.

The term is so ubiquitously presented, so monotously applied, that such prodigality defeats the very purpose and intention of the adjective, that is, to point out how special a person or behavior is.

Every devotee is wonderful. Every culinary preparation is wonderful. Every service in wonderful… If everything is wonderful in one sense nothing is really wonderful. Does everything really warrant an intense condition of wonderment?

I received an email from HG Ratna Bhusana Prabhu, seems there was another soldier in Iraq reaching out for Krishna. When i opened the mail and saw the name I realized I knew this guy. Bhakta Andrew is a friend of mine that I met after a tour in Iraq. We met at a skatepark in Germany and became friends. He was already a vegetarian and over time became favorable to Krishna consciousness.  He received a Bhagavad-gita from me and read it, then left to the States for his next assignment.

"Child-worship is more important than deity-worship. If you cannot spend time with your child, then stop the duties of pujari. These children are given to us by Krishna. They are Vaisnavas and we must be very careful to protect them. These are not ordinary childern, they are Vaikuntha children, and we are very fortunate we can give them chance to advance further in Krishna Consciousness. That is very great responsibility, do not neglect it or be confused."

Letter to Arundhati, July 30, 1972

Affluenza:

• feelings of unhappiness, stress, and guilt induced by the pursuit and possession of wealth
• #A feeling of dissatisfaction, anxiety, etc, caused by the dogged and ongoing pursuit of more.
• a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more
• 1. The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses. 2. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by dogged pursuit of the American Dream. 3. An unsustainable addiction to economic growth.

Here is a very nice video broadcast on krishna.com live where Mahatama dasa talks about the mood of chanting and how we should be aware of pronounciation and concentration on the sound vibration.

[Watch Video]

The ashram is officaly closed, because we have to make room for our replacments; I had to move in with another senior leader in my unit. Before I moved I asked my detachment sergeant if I could have one more day to do a last morning program.

I sent out the invitations, and in the morning of the program set up a book table and made a small feast. I woke up extra early, woke the Lords, and started chanting my rounds.