namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

Here's my presentation from last night. It was entitled 3 Types of Happiness. Maybe it could be titled: "What makes people happy?"

The last couple of minutes got cut off, but you get all the slides, and you get the idea.

Watch the presentation

It was part three of "The 3 Things You Need to Find Your Freedom". This week we were talking about "the process".

I started by reading "The Nine Billion Names of God" by Arthur C. Clarke. I got my supporting visuals from Flickr.com, and marked on the story script where the slide changes were.

Then I compared this to a Muslim saying that when there is no tongue on Earth that utters the name of Allah, the world will end.

The second part in the series "Finding Your Freedom"

Saturday 5 pm, Saturday September 27 at Atma Yoga.

I took some time out while preparing Sunday's presentation to check out this excellent presentation by Dr Candidasa: How to give a presentation (about Krishna consciousness). Highly recommended.

You can also check out my comic book "Communicating for Change: How to give a class" for some pointers.

Last night's presentation was a blast. The Sunday Feast crowd was the biggest it's been for some time, with a lot of university students. I'd estimate the numbers at around 80 - 100 people.

The technology worked for me perfectly, which is always a really pleasant surprise.

I used:
For visuals: A Nokia E61i cellphone using bluetooth to control an eeePC 901 running Openoffice.org Impress. BenQ 1024x768 projector

Srila Prabhupada explained: "It is said that every muni has a different angle of vision, and unless a muni differs from other munis, he cannot be called a muni in the strict sense of the term."

Re-presenting Srila Prabhupada involves tracking the current culture and keeping it real.

Great preachers always present a timeless message in a timely and relevant fashion - mainly by using relevant cultural examples. Witness Jesus' use of stories of fishes and animals, lost coins and greedy farmers.

Small-time preachers can also make a humble contribution to the tradition in their local area by giving relevant illustrations to explain the teachings.

Sunday Feast - Sitapati style [Video inside].

Props to Vrajadhama for mixing it up.

[Slideshow inside]

A comment from an Atma regular. Interesting food for thought.

Cheers Sita-pati,

Seeing that I can't find your direct email this will have to do. Please excuse the candour but that is how I operate:

Taking a strengths based approach of what little I know of the Hare Krishna movement the following seems apparent:

Great points from Seth Godin, easy to apply to a Krishna Conscious outreach program - especially if you are free from the layers of constraints and expectations imposed by doing a traditional program in a temple. My comments, based on doing the Hare Krishna Sunday Feast in Brisbane's Govinda's restaurant for two years, inline:

Easily overlooked, but incredibly important: the way you arrange the room where people speak.

An interesting article from a recent edition of Leadership Wired, on the subject of Criticism. Here's an excerpt:

Americans have a warped view of criticism. Unfortunately, most of us see criticism almost exclusively in a negative light. We dish it out tactlessly, use it to tear down rivals, and attack others with it even when we have no authority to do so.

I had a nice conversation with my god brother Tri-yuga this morning.

I filed the following quip in my "wisdom to live by" filing cabinet:

Standards are good and should be enforced

and..

Communication works best when people feel understood and cared for

"America's most media-savvy Hindu priest". Hindu priests listen up.

Here is an example of applying some of the principles employed by Bill O'Reilly in his Sunsara Taylor / Ron Luce interview [link] to the recent "Hare Krishna Diary" incident. It would not placate the cries of the lynch mob for blood, but it wouldn't absorb the agenda of the complainants into the GBC response either; and it would focus on process, maintaining a metastructure that can accommodate diversity within it, and raising the tone of the debate.

At the root this is a discipline issue.

One of my all time favorites. It's not Dawkins, but Sunsara Taylor, the head of "World Can't Wait" [Sunsara's blog].

I award this one squarely to Bill O'Reilly [wikipedia entry].

O'Reilly actually has two guests on, Taylor and Ron Luce [wikipedia entry], the head of "Battlecry USA". O'Reilly ostensibly acts as the moderator between the two. However, he expertly uses his position to slant the debate to Ron Luce, whom he obviously favors.

This is the classic "Dawkins getz 0wned" video.

Dawkins is asked the question "Can you give an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which is seen to increase the information in the genome?"

First of all, a little bit about this question. It strikes directly at the heart of the contradiction between our understanding of basic physics and the complexity of biology. According to physics "energy flows downhill". This is Newton's 2nd law of thermodynamics. This means that a system will lose energy over time. In layman's terms: " Everything runs down". That's why there are no perpetual motion machines.

Please read this post on Communication and Intention before continuing here.

This morning I was finally able to articulate what has provoked rage in me over resolution 311.

Here is the logic of the resolution:

Premise A. (explicit in resolution) We have external PR issues.

Premise B. (explicit in resolution) We have internal cultural issues.

Premise C. (implicit) X

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours talking with one of the members of my Sastric Advisory Committee. He is an editor at my work and spent a number of years studying to be a rabbi. He did some editing for me on my recent op-ed piece on ISKCON News (which explains the difference from my normal voice).

During our discussion he made an interesting point.

Further to Richard Dawkins vs Al-Khattab, one work colleague gave his analysis to me today (speaking of Al-Khattab):

This is Dawkins at his finest. A flawless victory without a doubt. The crowd gives him a wild ovation after a 70 second response to "the simplest question" from an audience member at Randolph Macon Women's College in Lynchburg, Virginia.

The question is: "What if you're wrong?"

Dawkins delivers his stunning oratorial tour de force by enveloping the question using a rhetorical cultural relativity argument that sweeps his opponents legs from under her. Again he wraps his opponent in a metanarrative. He doesn't address the question itself, but rather goes on the offensive, and attacks the questioner and their frame of reference.

This is the (in)famous encounter between Richard Dawkins and Pastor Ted Haggard [wikipedia entry], then mega-church pastor and head of the American Evangelical Union.

Ted Haggard's subsequent fall from grace and dismissal from his church and para-church leadership have lead to this encounter being mercilessly spoofed.

I give the point to Richard Dawkins in this excerpt from "The Root of Evil?".

Here he speaks with New York-born Joseph Cohen, child of a secular Jewish family who moved to Palestine as a Jewish settler, only to convert to Islam and move to Gaza with his family as Josef Al-Khattab.

The thing to bear in mind is that in public debate you are speaking primarily to the public, not to the person you are debating. The goal is to win public opinion to your viewpoint, and all rhetorical devices are utilized with this aim in mind.