namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

From a lecture on SB 2.1.1-5, given in Boston, on the 22 December 1969:

Eyes means introspection. Therefore Vedic culture says, eyes... Sastra-caksus: "You should see through sastra. Don't try to see by these eyes." These are, what is the value of this eye? They are conditioned in so many ways. You don't believe the eyes. See through the sastra, through the spiritual master, through the sastra. Try to see through this. That is perfect seeing.

by Kaunteya das

Actually the method doesn't even deserve the verb 'serving.'

The "system" is: someone brings breakfast prasadam (generally the morning maha plus something cooked in larger quantity and a drink) to the prasadam hall in plastic buckets of different sizes (often without enough spoons for serving); then people come and make their plates.

No one is serving. Often there are no plates, cups or spoons for the guests. There is no way of assuring that those who come a little later will get everything. (Today, for instance, one of the first devotees to arrive took three of the dozen or so puris; if the first four people to arrive do as he did, the next ten to twelve people won't get any puri...)

On top of that the devotees eat and walk away, without bothering to clean the place where they took prasadam and often leaving painfully obvious signs of subji and other remnants smudged around where the plate was.

Although also unacceptable, a better way would be that one or two devotees stand behind the containers and serve the devotees, who stand in line with their plate. This is also a sub-cultured system, but unfortunately it has been adopted even in Sridham Mayapur—where people are supposedl to learn Gaudiya Vaisnava culture—during the last Gaura Purnima Festival.

"The" system is that devotees sit in rows on the floor—chairs and tables could be provided for those who have trouble sitting cross-legged—and then the preparations are served, again and again, until everyone is satisfied. No need of getting up; no need of asking for any particular item—it will come around. At the end one server asks each individual if they need anything.

In this way the devotees have daily the chance to serve each other, honoring the commandment of Srila Rupa Goswami. Expert servers gauge the amount of prasadam and the quantity they will be able to dispense to avoid that some remain without some preparation.

The consciousness and the techniques of serving affects the culture, the mood, the spiritual advancement, and the digestion of the participants. Investing in doing it right assures a pleasant, productive, and Krishna conscious experience. It's worth the effort.

As your can see Radha Madana Mohana and Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu were looking stunning this Janmastami. Seeing them dressed so beautifully was one of the highlights of the festival for me. They were a real treat to behold. This is a picture of the evening darshan, Radha Madana Mohana are dressed in a beautiful flower outfit.

Check out a video of this darshan below

Here's a video of the morning darshan, which was also very stunning:

The rest of the program was great, we had well over five hundred guest at our humble abode, everything was well organized and the guests were very nicely taken care of. All the devotees worked really hard to make it all happen.

I didn't help out much around the temple. My main service for the day was the Stanford Janmastami program, that went nicely as well, here's a picture from the program:

The festivities didn't end with Janmastami, we had a very sweet and intimate Vyasa Puja celebration for Srila Prabhupada, culminating in a beautiful display of prema sankirtana.

I don't like to put pictures of myself online, but as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, in this case maybe more. It really captures a special moment.

The kirtan reminded me of being at Radha-Gopinath Mandir; we made a circle and then invited all the devotees to dance in the middle, one by one. After all the service, all the hearing and chanting together, and all the hard work and sacrifice, not just of this festival but over the months and years, everyone could feel the love that was overflowing from the devotees' hearts.

But it didn't end there; then we had an incredible feast cooked by Mother Nirakula and Mother Jagarini. Afterwards no one wanted to go home. We had been absorbed in service in the association of all the Vaishnavas that no one wanted the experience to end, so we all went over to Raxit Prabhu's house and watched a sneak preview of a new video that will be coming out about the sankirtan that is going on here at ISV. Then we hung out for the rest of the afternoon, eating icecream and relishing each others company. We parted ways in the evening, exhausted but fully satisfied.

But the fun didn't end there, the show must go on, come Monday morning it was time to get ready for burning man, lots and lots of devotees were arriving and we were trying to figure out how to pick them all up and get them to the festival. Monday Night I picked up Jagannath Kirtan Das (aka Jagi Aragones), and Sugosh. Their flight got delayed and we didn't end up making it home 'til 2 am. After making a few arrangements we figured out how they could stay and perform for us at our Tuesday night program at Stanford. All the students were charmed by their devotion, musical talents, and good looks.

Here's a picture of Jagi in Nyc, looking very superstarish.

Check out his Myspace to hear some of his music. I especially loved the tittle track "Blue" from his new demo album, it's a love song about a young boy and girl.

Today we met up with the rest of the party (Vish, Vrinda, Keesh, Akincana, Das and Ani) who flew in late last night and they are now all on their way.

I maybe heading out that way sometime on Thursday or Friday, but still not sure.

The other big news is that Radhanath Swami is getting closer to Silicon Valley. He is now in Los Angeles. Excited doesn't begin to describe it. This is the first summer in my adult life, the past eight years, that I haven't seen Maharaj at the Festival of Inspiration and other places around the East Coast, but as they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder, separation makes the meeting sweeter, and soon the separation will bear its fruit.

Firstly I must apologies to those who asked me to come and see what they were doing act. Service called and I remained busy up to returning to Wales. I managed to video only two other things other than morning class which I am including in the video archive.

Two from my friend Parasurama Dasa; first some songs he has written:

Parasurma Dasa Magic Show:

The second was a wonderful presentation followed by a small discussion, this was totally inspirational and would be useful in the area were I live, which has seen a lot of suicides. I have included a clip of one of the discussions: What would you do if you had one day left to live?

It would be wonderful if the youth could bring this for a weekend I'm sure the local youth were I live would truly benefit from it

Again sorry for the delay in publishing these clips from Bhaktivadanta Manor 2008 Janmastami celebrations. I will edit and post some clips from the morning class over the next few days but hope you enjoy these few postings:

It was with some sweetness that some of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples shared a little bit with us:

Apologies for the quality and camera angles but hope that this gives a small taste of how amazing the day was

You have probably seen it: mangala arati is over and Tulasi puja is about to start; from the devotees in attendance one reaches the mat on which he will stand and then removes the socks, spectacularly flinging them to the nearest wall—possibly ten meters away—from which they bounce and come to rest as crumpled balls.

Having witnessed the cherished liturgy for a number of years, I ask myself:

• Is this ritual of removing the socks necessary (independently of if they are thrown or not)?
• Who introduced or promoted it?
• What's wrong with the devotees' socks at 5:00 am? Already dirty?

If they are attempting to maintain a brahminical standard of puja attire, which mandates the removal of all sewn clothing, why do the keep kurtas, sweaters, jackets and so on?

Is it an offense to offer puja to Tulasi Devi wearing socks? If yes, in which scriptural text or commentary is it mentioned?

To me the tradition appears as superfluous, in a similar league with "the cat in the basket" and "the Kumbha-mela excrement shrine."

PS: I remain completely open to be convinced that it is necessary to remove the socks, if someone explains it to me with sastric evidence or/and common sense.

See my house at Google maps.

You can zoom into the second highest level of resolution.

In the view that shows the roads, if you go East to the lower resolution area and then North along McCreary Ridge Road, just before that splits into Big Wheeling Creek Rd and Limestone/Dallas Rd you will see an almost parallel road branch off on the West side. That is the road from the Palace to the temple.

I have been waiting for this to get a better picture of the temple area for a while but apparently Google Maps shares a flaw with my own false ego and thinks I am more important than the temple.

The other day I was walking with one of my clients along the sea front and I watched the birds, sheep and the odd dog taking their owner for a walk as I looked around and took in the view I was struck by actually how short and precious this life is.

We look at the plant life the animal life how long do they live, how much suffering is there before reaching this human form?

Then I finally arrived at this human form pf life and what do I do fritter away over 35 years just doing what I have done in previous lives following instinct and desires a true waste. I have if I’m lucky three score years and ten? May be less, may be more who’s to say.

To loose this form to go back to what I was before, how long then until another human form is gained?

But then I sat wondering how fortunate that I gained a book, actually read it but then to be given the chance to Chant the wonderful names of Krishna.

This is a wonderful and unique opportunity why waste it?

Auckland, New Zealand.

Above: The Eponymous Man before the Burning

My daughter Jahnavi is at the Burning Man Festival in the Nevada Desert. Its quite a scene: 50,000 people, gallons of sun-block, wild, colourful, artistic installations, alternative philosophies, and, as the name suggests, a burning man in the centre and at the climax of it all.

As a father, I never really wanted to mention the words ‘desert’ and ‘daughter’ in the same sentence. Specially a redheaded girl in baking daytime temperatures of 115 degrees. I’d heard about this festival years ago - sort of a mudless Glastonbury without the bands - and I thought it to be a wild gathering of all the alternative types from all over America. Sort of Mad Max meets Easy Rider meets Alice in Wonderland.

But these days ‘alternative philosophy’ has become mainstream and, like Glastonbury, a lot of well-heeled weekend hippies go along to the event. The Hare Krishnas have a small camp every year and set up a temple, hold fire sacrifices (appropriately) and even a Chariot Procession. This year the devotees are part of a bigger ‘village’ and are doing most of the catering for around 2,000 people. Its what we do, after all, and people like what we do.

So I’m happy that she’s going to be preaching the message of Krishna through food, chanting and speaking with other festival-goers, but still a bit apprehensive about the white, powdery sands of the desert, the scorpions and poisonous spiders, and, of course, that burning man.

People doing their artistic thing in the Nevada desert

Your servant, Tri-yuga das

Dear Srila Prabhupada,

nama oà viñëu-pädäya kåñëa-preñöhäya bhü-tale

çrémate bhaktivedänta-svämin iti nämine

namas te särasvate deve gaura-väëé-pracäriëe

nirviçeña-çünyavädi-päçcätya-deça-täriëe

In this age of Kali, we can see the world has gone mad. So many wars in the world, so many demonic leaders, so many fallen souls. But also in this age of Kali Yuga, you have appeared to push this mission of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Swami Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada you have given us a purpose and direction for our time in this body. We can spend all day meditating on your qualities, and we do not have enough breath in our lungs to speak your glories. 

 With each word that comes from your lotus mouth, the desire to enjoy and stay in the material is destroyed. When we meditate on your personal dealings with your disciples, we can understand that you are truly the well wisher of all living entities.   When  Guru Kripa Prabhu wrote to you; “Personally, I don’t think I can ever follow all these rules. At the time I was following them, but I was being sincere. And, therefore, I have to make one request, I have read that there are three types of people who reach perfection: the nity-siddha, the kripa-siddha and the sadhana-siddha. I cannot follow all these rules, so how will I ever become perfect? I request you to make me a kripa-siddha.” Your Divine Grace wrote “All right, Guru Kripa, I will give you.”  How merciful are you Srila Prabhupada? 

 My your divine mercy I have seen the impact your books make on the fallen souls.  Srila Prabhupada, I beg you to bestow your mercy on this wretched soul and bless me to do something meaningful in this life. Allow me to truly understand this process of devotional service and to have the abilities to spread it to everyone I come in contact with.  Please forgive me for all my offenses at your lotus feet.

Your servant,

Partha-sarathi Dasa

Mexico City, 24 August 2008,
Sri Sri Radha-Madan-Gopal Temple

The days started early, by waking up spontaneously (if you don't include the Vayasaki bhajan CD playing loudly in the nearby temple room) at 3:15 am. It always helps to chant a few rounds before mangala-arati...

Mangala-arati was the most attended I ever saw here: young and senior devotees alike filled up the temple. For the occasion we sang Vibhavari Sesa instead of the customary Guruvastaka prayers.

After Tulasi puja I went for a japa-walk with my wife, Sri Radha Govinda Dasi, to the nearby Chapultepec garden, where Srila Prabhupada used to walk.

Later I gave a one hour internet lecture to a devotee community in the Middle East. I based the speech on a class Srila Prabhupada gave forty years ago, on 16 August 1968 in Montreal, on Janmastami. Srila Prabhupada elaborated on the janma karma ca me divyam verse (Bg 4.9), where Krishna says that whoever understand the divine nature of His appearance and activities won't take birth again in this material world. I hope the audience enjoyed the talk as much as I enjoyed giving it.

Then I spoke for a couple of hours with Aravinda Prabhu. He leads the work of the BBT in Mexico, Central, America, and parts of South America, by planning, producing and directly distributing books. He is also involved with the Mexican National Council and the Mexico City temple administration. He came to Mexico City from Cueramaro, some four hours North of here, where, in a rural setting, he organized and is teaching a residential, full-immersion Bhakti-sastri course. This two-month educational retreat constitutes a first for Spanish-speaking Latin America. The course includes the participation of guest professors HH Dhanvantari Swami (from Brazil), and of HH Guru Prasad Swami (Mexico's GBC). Aravinda invited me to teach the whole Sri Isopanisad next month, and I gladly accepted.

Later on I was doing a little introductory research on the Isa or Isavasya Upanisad on the internet and I came across some interesting academic references (including the surprising: "Isavasya Upanisad—The Doctrine of the Immanence of Jesus" with commentary by a Prof. M.M. Ninan, who believes that Hinduism came from Christianity).

At 4:30 pm I gave a lecture in the temple. The local administration had entitled the speech: "The Mysticism of Chanting the Holy Names." It was intended to be an introduction to chanting, but seeing many devotees in the audience and it being Janmastami, I concentrated on describing Janmastami—connecting the lila with the chanting when I could.

As usual, the main challenge connected with fasting is weakness, rather than hunger. The legs started to feel wobbly after 6:00 pm, but the spirit was emboldened by the exciting reggae and ska performance of a local devotee group.

The program went on more or less smoothly. The main hitch was failing for about an hour to connect by Skype with His Holiness Hridayananda Maharaja for a live lecture. Finally the connection was established and we all heard and saw this highly scholarly and humorous luminary.

The prasada (ekadasi style) deserves mention: somehow the devotees managed to produce in sufficient quality a kind of delicious preparation that involves cabbage leaves stuffed with nuts and other ingredients, apparently a labor-intensive recipe.

It was my first Janmastami in Sri Sri Radha-Madan-Gopal temple, but a regular told me that it was one of the best ever.

This month, almost 2 million first-year students will head off to college campuses around the country. Most of them will be about 18 years old, born in 1990 when headlines sounded oddly familiar to those of today: Rising fuel costs were causing airlines to cut staff and flight schedules; Big Three car companies were facing declining sales and profits; and a president named Bush was increasing the number of troops in the Middle East in the hopes of securing peace. However, the mindset of this new generation of college students is quite different from that of the faculty about to prepare them to become the leaders of tomorrow.

Each August for the past 11 years, Beloit College in Beloit, Wis., has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college. It is the creation of Beloit’s Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and Public Affairs Director Ron Nief. The List is shared with faculty and with thousands who request it each year as the school year begins, as a reminder of the rapidly changing frame of reference for this new generation.

The class of 2012 has grown up in an era where computers and rapid communication are the norm, and colleges no longer trumpet the fact that residence halls are “wired” and equipped with the latest hardware. These students will hardly recognize the availability of telephones in their rooms since they have seldom utilized landlines during their adolescence. They will continue to live on their cell phones and communicate via texting. Roommates, few of whom have ever shared a bedroom, have already checked out each other on Facebook where they have shared their most personal thoughts with the whole world.

It is a multicultural, politically correct and “green” generation that has hardly noticed the threats to their privacy and has never feared the Russians and the Warsaw Pact.

Some excerpts from the list:

For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.

• Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.
• GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
• Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
• Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
• Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene.
• The Warsaw Pact is as hazy for them as the League of Nations was for their parents.
• Schools have always been concerned about multiculturalism.
• IBM has never made typewriters.
• McDonald’s and Burger King have always used vegetable oil for cooking french fries.
• The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno and started at 11:EST.
• They may have been given a Nintendo Game Boy to play with in the crib.
• Personal privacy has always been threatened.
• Caller ID has always been available on phones.
• They never heard an attendant ask “Want me to check under the hood?”
• They have never known life without Seinfeld references from a show about “nothing.”
• Windows 3.operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born.
• Off-shore oil drilling in the United States has always been prohibited.
• Radio stations have never been required to present both sides of public issues.

See the whole list here.

About 60 million CAPTCHAs are solved by humans around the world every day. In each case, roughly ten seconds of human time are being spent. Individually, that's not a lot of time, but in aggregate these little puzzles consume more than 150,000 hours of work each day. What if we could make positive use of this human effort? reCAPTCHA does exactly that by channeling the effort spent solving CAPTCHAs online into "reading" books.

Read more about it here.

The other day I decided to take some time to see what was on the internet relating to Krishna and ISKCON; I also wanted to see what other devotee’s had put on as viewed or subscribed to on YouTude.

To my horror I found a young individual claiming to be His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada although not offering up any evidence to back up his claim, this false claim can be put down to several factors but got me thinking and pondering on Prabhupada’s life.

Whilst professing to be His divine Grace he refuted the teachings put forward for a more impersonal mayavarde view whilst offering up no evidence in the Vedic scriptures to back this up.

Lets just look at the facts; bid his divine grace write his own interpretations of the Vedic scriptures? I feel it say’s this with no reference? NO! Srila Prabhupada wrote and quoted previous Acarya’s and Gosvami’s whilst also referring and linking one text with another. Could this be done without full understanding? NO! Ok he understood that those in the west would struggle with some of the concepts and so gave examples that could be understood, this at times gave great humour and at times great gravity but helped aid understanding.

Did he revel in the success of ISKCON? Look what I’ve done? NO! In fact we see many quotes were he thanked his own spiritual master for sending these nice boys and girls to help? This is Krishna’s mercy.

The amazing thing is that he inspired so many young people even though he was an old man at the fag end of his life whilst the young who had given up on society took to the teachings and even followed what could have been seen at the time as repressive regulations. Could an ordinary man achieve such things? Could we then claim to be such a great personality without offering up evidence? NO!

The other day whilst helping get the books together for Janmastami
celebrations what occurred to me most was actually how much Srila Prabhupada wrote. Could an ordinary scholar achieve so much in such a short period of time? No! I sat thinking I should make an effort to read them all although I am sure I will come up with some excuse not to.

We then look at ISKCON and yes it has had a few teething problems but look at how it continues to grow, or in some places explode as it did in those early years. We also see how Srila Prabhupada brought about true equality he did not concern himself with gender, colour, race or false identifications but looked at the qualities of those he met, inspired them and gave them positions in accordance with the individuals abilities.

We look at how he took shelter of his own spiritual master and his aim was not what can I achieve for my own fame or glory but how can I best carry out the instruction given, he was so moved by the suffering he could see that during his first year in America he cried for those lost souls whilst pondering how to best save them and fulfil the request of is own Spiritual master.

Because of the love of his disciples they today continue to fulfil his wish, which was the wish of his own spiritual master, who was carrying out the order of his spiritual master. Those of us who take shelter of ISKCON’s spiritual masters carry on in this line presenting Krishna Consciousness to those conditioned souls who are suffering in this world simply for the love and desire to please and serve as best we can.

To make a wild claim to be Srila Prabhupada is disturbing when we see what an amazing personality and ever well-wisher he was and through his disciples will remain, to be reminded of this at such a time as this is a great mercy to me and a reminder to remain focused always.