Srimad-Bhagavatam Meditation: 1:10:3

It is now time for our weekly meditation on a verse from the ripened fruit of all the Vedic literatures, the Srimad-Bhagavatam.

I humble ask you to please first read the Bhaktivedanta translation and purport from the First Canto, Tenth Chapter, Third Verse.

niśamya bhīsmoktam athācyutoktam
pravrtta-vijñāna-vidhūta-vibhramah
śaśāsa gām indra ivājitāśrayah
paridhyupāntām anujānuvartitah

Mahārāja Yudhisthira, after being enlightened by what was spoken by Bhīsmadeva and Lord Śrī Krsna, the infallible, engaged himself in matters of perfect knowledge because all his misgivings were eradicated. Thus he ruled over the earth and seas and was followed by his younger brothers.

It takes only a few passing glances at a newspaper, blog, or television set to see that the practice of democracy in our current age is being exposed as a web of deceit. For those who choose to dig deeper, or have been a victim of the widespread voter fraud of the last two American presidential elections, the reality of what is going on is frightening to think about.

What can we, the so-called powerless people, do against a machine that only presents us with the illusion of freedom and choice, while at the same time bringing us further under a mass-control mechanism of irrational fear, technological addiction, and an epidemic of depression?

Prabhupada says here "It is the person who rules, and not the impersonal government. If the person is perfect, the government is perfect. If the person is a fool, the government is a fool's paradise. That is the law of nature." On the surface, this is obvious to anyone with any intelligence and interest in the common good, in relating to our current political and social climates.

But in a more complete sense, Prabhupada is calling for us to turn away from democracy (or "demon-crazy" as he calls it) as the ideal form of government. In the ideal Vedic conception, the world should be guided by one state, one rule, one leader. This leader must be a perfect, spiritual individual, who by dint of his piety and compassion, will please God so much that all necessities and desires of the citizenry will fall into line.

If this sounds like an impossible utopia, it is, at least on the material platform. To any modern, Western-educated individual, it may also seem like a regression to the days of dictators and despots. However, billions of people around the globe already are attempting to follow one perfect individual. His name is God, or Krsna, or Allah, or Jesus, etc.

Because we are imperfect beings in a materially conditioned state, we cannot take up the responsibility of attempting to lord over the resources and ideologies of any form of society that can be established on this earthly planet. The history books are full of the folly of this startling misconception. In this age of quarrel and hypocrisy, the perfect spiritual leader does not exist in a human body. Therefore, we must fill this void by trusting in the word, law, and love of God.

But this trust is lost, the law is warped, and this love is perverted into so many diluted forms. This isn't because of any defect in God's nature, contrary to so much popular belief. It is because of our own conditioned state, our own choices, and our own helplessness in what is being imposed upon us by the demoniac forces covering up the goodwill of this globe.

The only revolution that will truly create any tangible, positive change is a spiritual revolution, with the word of God at the center. This revolution will only take place when the different faiths of this world learn to see beyond the superficial differences that exist at the expense of the common cure, the common foundation.

However difficult it may be, and whatever comforts we are attached to, we must give it up and work together, because us spiritually-minded people are this planet's only hope.

"But a king like Mahārāja Yudhisthira had no ideology of his own. He had but to follow the instructions of the infallible Lord and the Lord's representative and the authorized agent, Bhīsmadeva. It is instructed in the śāstras that one should follow the great authority and the infallible Lord without any personal motive and manufactured ideology." We must give-up all temporary, materially-based ideologies and become channels for the revolution of the Lord, who supplies all answers and all sense.

Democracy can ideally work on a local scale, but we must realize that man cannot rule man alone. Until then we will suffer and stumble and perhaps wipe ourselves clear away. This is the most serious, pressing matter we face, and I beg of you to heed it with thought and action.

Tea Time

One of my main duties here at New Vrindaban is to assist with the college outreach programs we run out of our ashram. Each week we travel to a number of different universities, and engage the brightest and best in vegetarian cooking classes, spiritual discussions, and rollicking musical jams featuring the holy names of the Lord.

At Ohio University we host the Vegan Cooking Workshop, which has been running for four years and attracts a funky family of 75-100 kids a week. At Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh our favorite model of ecstasy Yugal Kishore Prabhu preaches to a very intelligent group of students going for their masters degrees in all kinds of technological applications and prowess. The next Bill Gates might very well be Krsna conscious.

Caitanya and I have been heading off towards the Steel City as well. In recent weeks, we have quietly invaded the Oakland Tea Room, a gathering of very open-minded kids hosting a tea-discussion-movie showing affair that occurs every Friday evening in the Student Union of the University of Pittsburgh.

Don't worry!...I chose the decaffeinated Original India Spice


We bring some great spiritualized food, wearing our traditional devotional gear, the dhoti, and our what-the-hell-is-that haircut, the sikha. We certainly look and talk unique, and while we freak out a few people, more often than not, we touch the hearts of some very sincere spiritual seekers.


One example of this is the young chap you see above hugging the bejesus out of Caitanya. His name is Richard and he is a sophomore at U-Pitt, hoping to become a medical student in the near-future. Like many at the Oakland Tea Room, Richard is a Christian who doesn't define himself to any rigid denomination.

I had the great fortune to tell him as much as I could about the practice of Krsna consciousness, and it was a very powerful experience on both ends. Richard was visibly blown-away and even moved by hearing about the Vedic model of existence, the eternal nature of the spirit soul, the adventures of Srila Prabhupada, and being more tolerant than a tree, more humble than a blade of grass...

Seeing how Richard was affected also moved me in a very deep way. For once, I actually got a glimpse of what it means to be an instrument for Krsna's will and Prabhupada's mission. To help Krsna bloom in the heart of someone who is very deeply seeking to strengthen his or her spiritual foundation is real magic, real mysticism, real charity, and real love.

So Richard, my man, if you are reading this, as I said, I just scratched the surface, and I have a beautiful hardcover Bhagavad Gita As It Is for you next time I see you.

We'd like to send a big-up and most humble gratitude to everyone at the Oakland Tea Room for tolerating and listening to us most unusual Hare Krsna kids. In this time of quarrel and hypocrisy, spiritual seekers of all stripes must band together to put this earthly planet on the right track. Friday nights at the Oakland Tea Room are a living example of this unity.

New Vrindaban's Best Kept Secret (Part 2)

By Bhakta-Chris

the perfection of life

the mode of goodness

Srila Prabhupada lays out the bare facts very clearly: “Men do not understand that because they unrestrictedly kill so many animals, they must also be slaughtered like animals in big wars….In the West, slaughterhouses are maintained without restriction, and therefore every fifth or tenth year there is a big war in which countless people are slaughtered even more cruelly than the animals.”

Cow protection has always been and will always be one of the most fundamental tenets of Prabhupada’s mission. By leading the mass of the bovine population to the slaughterhouse, we not only cause incredibly serious environmental effects, but karmic reactions that send our earthly planet into an apocalyptic tailspin.

To be Krsna conscious and to not have any interest or desire to engage in systematic protection of the world’s cow population is to be missing a big part of the point. If you don’t believe me, ask Balabhadra, our ISKCON Minister of Cow Protection and Agriculture, or Madhava Ghosh, or any senior devotee with a little dung permanently stained into their pants. They will give you candid and inspiring information that will help you to see Mother Cow in a way you never have before.

mmm…

New Vrindaban is much more than just the temple itself. In fact, if you listen close enough, you may hear Radha Vrindaban Chandra whisper that their favorite part of New Vrindaban is the cows. If you’re visiting or living here and haven’t had the chance to visit the Goshalla, with the shining faces of our bull calves Kesava and Madhava and their esteemed mothers Tulasi and Ganga, you are in for a real treat. The kind of love and affection a cow can give you is something very special in this material world. The true essence must be experienced. For more information on the important need of cow protection, please check out www.iscowp.org.

Srimad-Bhagavatam Meditation: 1:10:4

Once a week, I will be sharing a meditation on a verse from the ripened fruit of the tree of Vedic knowledge: the Srimad-Bhagavatam, translated and with commentary by His Divine Grace Swami Srila Prabhupada.

I humble request you to first read today's verse, from Canto 1, Chapter 10, Verse 4..."Departure of Lord Krsna for Dvaraka."

kamam vavarsa parjanyah
sarva-kama-dugha mahi
sisicuh sma vrajan gavah
payasodhasvatir muda

During the reign of Maharaja Yudhisthira, the clouds showered all the water that people needed, and the earth produced all the necessities of man in profusion. Due to its fatty milk bag and cheerful attitude, the cow used to moisten the grazing ground with milk.



In Prabhupada's commentary, he says that "the basic principle of economic development is centered on land and milk." This is the very foundation of our Krsna conscious motto of "Simple Living and High Thinking." All of our farm communities strive to live wholly by this ideal. The earth provides all we need naturally, especially when we are aligned spiritually with the dictates of the Absolute Truth. But, as individual spirit souls who have a tendency to want to believe that we are the Absolute Truth, we misuse our God-given free will and are always attempting to live in a world that is bigger, better, and faster.

No matter how much you and I love our MP3 players, they are not essential to our survival. This can be extended to any technological or extraneous mechanical device, even this very computer. The Internet can be a wonderful communication tool, but if some crafty Korean hackers yanked the whole show down this afternoon, your physical survival would most likely not be threatened.

It is this drive to create artificial comforts and standards of sense gratification that distracts us from true realization of the nature of our self, and of how we can relate in the best possible way to all the souls who surround us as well. I'm certainly no luddite, but the future of humanity depends of finding a balance between the land and the mechanical invention. Right now, the see-saw is leaning heavy in the direction of the machine, and the machine might just want to eat us whole.

Getting to that correct balance means first and foremost respecting those cheerfully fatty cows. Prabhupada pulls no punches when he says "Why should men kill cows for their selfish purposes? Why should man not be satisfied with grains, fruits and milk....Why are there slaughterhouses all over the world to kill innocent animals?...Is this humanity? Are not the animals of a country citizens also? Then why are they allowed to be butchered in organized slaughterhouses? Are these the signs of equality, fraternity, and non-violence?"

Have you ever seriously asked yourself these questions before? The answers that are provided with some good old-fashioned thinking will hopefully enlighten you well beyond what you choose to put onto your dinner plate. There are deep environmental and spiritual benefits that come with a conscious change to a vegetarian or vegan diet.

No less an authority than Albert Einstein says that "nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
Becoming a vegetarian is, from my own personal experience, one of the most rewarding choices you can make in your personal practice of existence.

We have to listen to more than just our guts. I pray than anyone who reads this can at least try to understand your own individual responsibility to your own health, and the health of all living entities that surround you, including animals big and small. The happiness you will feel is guaranteed to help you see reality much clearer than you ever have before.

Check out the Veggie Hub (www.veggiehub.com). They'll explain it much better.

"There's something up there, Mulder"

When I was a wee young child going to the Harper Woods Public Library, I would instantly head right to the beginning of the Dewey Decimal System and check out all of the books on UFOs, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster.

I have always been and still am very much fascinated with such paranormal subjects, which push the limits of human experience, thought, and belief in many challenging and exciting ways.

So, this blog will feature, along with my many devotional experiences in Krsna consciousness, different interesting articles and news from the paranormal world.

First in line is a recent article from the Arizona Daily Star, in which former Governor of Arizona Fife Symington admits to having been an eyewitness to one of the major UFO sightings of the past 20 years, the Phoenix Lights.

One of the most powerfully empowered gurus in our tradition, Bhakta Tirtha Swami, also had a keen interest in the subject of UFOs, and he wrote about them at length in his excellent book Spiritual Warrior I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena.

In this tome, B.T Swami says very clearly that spiritual advancement means coming into tune with realities far beyond the mundane newspaper-cheeseburger-football game paradigm we currently live in. And one of those realities is the fact that we are being visited, altered, and even aided by beings who originate from places very very far away from this earthly realm.

The "little green men" piloting these UFOs may actually be very spiritually advanced entities who have come to Earth at this time to aid us in the many vast societal and cultural changes that loom in the decades ahead.

B.T Swami says that "this is one of the most incredible times to be a part of this universe...You also have purposely taken birth at this time on this planet to be a part of this unfoldment. We encourage you to align yourselves with people and practices that will raise your consciousness and that will harmoniously align you with the universe and God."

In case I haven't mentioned it yet, an open mind is required at this particular corner of the blogosphere. In case you haven't noticed it as well, the foundation of our so-called "advanced" civilization is crumbling faster and faster by the day. We need to look to the past and to the future in order to find the solutions to the mess we have made. As they used to say every Friday night on Fox, "the truth is out there.."