namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

This was an e-mail sent some time ago by HH Mahavishnu Swami on the use of Yeast; my own conclusion as faulty as it may be is that if we cannot offer it to the deities then it cannot be Krishna Prasadam and so not used.

It also reminds me of the importance of devotional life and the mercy of both Srila Prabhupada and our own Guru Maharaja’s in adjusting things to help make the adjustment into devotional life a little easier due to our conditioning as gross materialists.

Last Saturday afternoon at the Krishna-Balarama Mandir in Queens, NY, toward the end of conducting a workshop in chanting (japa-yoga), I felt thankful—as indeed I had on similar occasions—to be able to present the participants with the kind and reassuring statement that Kṛṣṇa himself offered Uddhava. And my auditors, whose sincerity and seriousness had become evident to me, were similarly grateful.

Don’t get agitated and depressed over your lack of attention and devotion in japa. Be grateful for what attachment you do have and capitalize on that. Build up. You watch yourself merely counting the minutes and seconds per round, the number of rounds, the time of day... the progress that any worker feels as he shovels his way or as she types her way or he reads his way through a designated amount of work. Think of piece workers who get credit for so many items sewn.

SDGonline online diary by Satsvarupa dasa Goswami

Who am I? I am no one, no one important, but I do believe in Krishna, Prabhupada, and his movement. I am fairly new to Krishna consciousness; in this lifetime its been around three years now I've had the honor of associating with the devotee's. In that time I have noticed some things that I feel should not be overlooked for a community thats trying to help others find their way back to Godhead.

I have noticed that we have four regulation of no eating meat, no gambling, no intoxication, and no sex outside of marriage. But everywhere I see some of these principles being broken right in our community. I understand we are conditioned souls with many dirty things in our hearts—trust me, I know; I am still praying that these impurities are cleansed from my heart. What I don't get is when or who has decided that it's fine to do these things openly in the community, like nothing is wrong with it?

Regular Means Daily

So how sincere are we really? That is the question. And we should not so easily accept that we are sincere but rather we should see that we fall short in sincerity and that we should deepen our sincerity, that we should in other words, increase our commitment, because sincerity is measured in the commitment that we make—commitment that we make in sadhana and in service. It is that to which we must come to.

written at New Dwarka, LA

Scared from the War

I boarded the flight from JFK to LAX, and hoped to catch up on some rest. As I looked for my seat I noticed the man sitting next to me was an amputee. I sat down and made some small talk with him. It turned out he lost his legs to a roadside blast in Iraq. I explained to him that I was a soldier also and showed my id card. He asked if I saw anything crazy there. "My friend, too much!" is what i responded. He looked down and with a sad expression explained how now he drank all the time and was very depressed.

I am sitting in NYC now, looking out the window and thinking how fortunate we are to have this movement. Below on the street, people are running from here to there with no goal or purpose. No realization of what the purpose of this life is. It is very sad, and breaks the heart of a devotee to see. I just arrived from DC, and the monitor in the cab said, "If eating meat was a religion, then consider us your church." It was an ad for a steak house. I was blown away; how crazy is Kali-yuga? How fallen is today's more advanced society? The only hope for them is for devotees to awaken their soul and engage them in Krishna’s service.

Arriving at HG Vaisesika Prabhu's and Mother Nirakula's was wonderful and I was treated to seeing their amazing altar. For those that don't know: ISKCON Silicion Valley is amazing. The program they have in place is cutting edge and really setting an example for the rest of ISKCON to follow. I recommend anyone interested in congregation development to go there and take notes.

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.