namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

Here is a message from HH Bhakticaru Maharaja to the PAMHO conference BCS Istagosthi, encouraging us to pay as much attention to Srila Prabhupada's Bhagavad-Gita as to our cell phones. While there is plenty of room for improvement in my Gita study habits, I don't pay much attention to my mobile phone; but I see many others, teenagers mostly, fiddling around with their phones all the time.

For many cell phones have become indispensible accessories; they would as soon leave home naked than leave without their phones. While it would be good to carry Bhagavad-Gita with us at all times, I doubt if many will adopt this practice. For those who own an iPhone or iPod-touch, though, this has become a lot easier now, thanks to Vinod Bihari Prabhu, who adapted some of the texts available at vedabase.net for use with these devices.

Skype is a relatively new and extremely popular technology. It's different from other VoIP (voice-over-internet-protocol) networks as it doesn't rely on central servers, but establishes a peer-to-peer network, which can easily grow with the number of users connected. [Lots of additional information is available here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype.]

The software and basic membership in the Skype-network are free (see download-links in the side-bar), allowing over 100 million users free chat-, audio-, and video-calls over the internet. This includes text-based group-chat with up to one-hundred, and conference-calls among up to ten participants. Another interesting (free) feature is Skypecast: groups of up to one-hundred members can be hosted, in the form of a lecture (one person talks and the others listen), or everybody can talk (or chant) simultaneously.