The boards of ISKCON New Vrindaban and ECO-Vrindaban, the two landholding entities in New Vrindaban, voted on February 20^th and February 23^rd, respectively, to sign leases for the Utica Shale, a deep natural gas formation.  In 2010, both boards signed similar leases for the Marcellus Shale.  As with that decision, this one was fraught with controversy.

Turmeric is a commonly found spice and herb that is increasing in popularity, and for good reason. Below we’ll uncover what turmeric is great for when it comes to healing and wellness.

As I patiently waited for a tyre change on Monday, I began thinking of how a spiritual movement is just like a car. 

Today, Ukraine is all over the news for the civil unrest in its capital Kiev. But devotees are safe, and doing what they can to assist those affected. The crisis has, however, affected the Bhakti Sangam festival, which draws thousands of devotees and is the biggest ISKCON festival in the Ukraine and one of the biggest in the world. The festival was held every September in the Crimean Peninsula on the coast of the Black Sea, an area which became Russian territory in late February.

ISKCON devotees in Russia and Ukraine have had quite a turbulent time in the past month with the revolution in Ukraine. Due to this situation Bhakti Vijnana Goswami has recorded an appeal to the devotees of Ukraine and Russia. 

Scare crows and Autumn wreaths were a part of our learning about the Autumn or Fall Season. What happens during this time of year that a scare crow is used for? Harvest!  Pumpkins, Other winter squashes, Corn, Nuts, Berries, Apples, Pears, Hay . . . They all must be protected from the many kinds of birds. We also learned about  changes taking place in Nature – How leaves change from green to golden yellows, reds and browns before swirling down in the brisk autumn wind to the multicolored ground. This section included a series of Social Studies lessons about the European Pilgrims and Native Americans.

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Dear devotees of Lord Gauranga, please accept our most humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada! All glories to Sri Navadvipa Dham! All glories to Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the Navadvipa Candra! We finished our most amazing and blissful  Sri Navadvipa Mandala Parikrama Silver Jubilee Celebration on 11th March in a great union of the parties […]

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Today the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust Africa will broadcast the second annual Bhaktivedanta Swami Lecture, to be given at WITS University, Johannesburg, by His Holiness Devamrita Swami.

The event will go live at 6:25 pm in Johannesburg. That’s 5:25 in Belgium, 4:25 in London, 12:25 in New York.

Other worldwide timings here:

http://tinyurl.com/BhaktivedantaSwamiLecture2014

Link to live stream: 

http://streaming.wits.ac.za/live/index.html.

You can also see the video made in advance to promote the event.

The Bhaktivedanta Swami lecture highlights the teachings of Srila Prabhupada and their relevance for Africa and the world today.

The lecture is now on YouTube.

The post Live broadcast today: 2nd annual Bhaktivedanta Swami Lecture appeared first on Jayadvaita Swami.

Review of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Episode 2: “Some of the Things Molecules Do”

This episode had a few brilliant moments, but we had to sit through a whole lot of hot air in between each. I started watching the series saying I was comfortable accepting that a TV Series like this is not a scientific document, but an evangelical piece on behalf of the church of science. Still, since a core tenant of the church of science is the sacred nature of evidence one would hope that even a TV series aired on FOX would take some trouble now and then to demonstrate its logics or present its evidence, rather than simply asserting that such things exist and are acceptable beyond reasonable doubt.

In Episode 2, the show is starting to feel like its relying too much on Tyson’s persuasive charisma and the “wow” effect of computer graphics. Still I’m hoping that this will just be the worst episode, and the rest will be better.

Dogs and Bears

It starts off a little dull, with Tyson at a camp fire explaining how breeding can cause variation within a species. He calls this “evolution by artificial selection.” I don’t know, I think a more eloquent term is “breeding.” He jumps from the explanation of breeding to saying that all life as we know it evolves from simple inert molecules, without so much as a nod to the huge distance he jumped. As if showing that wolves can be bred into dogs, or that bears can change fur color (variation within existing species) is somehow perfectly valid evidence that an inert, dead molecule can somehow transform into a viable, living organism, and that this organism can change into complex life, changing entirely from one species to another.

Sorry Mr. Neil, as handsome as you are and as smooth as your voice surely is, I would raise my hand in your class and call “bullshit” on you. Anyone on any side of the evolution issue whose thought about this with minimal sincerity will honestly admit that evidence for modification within a species is not acceptable as evidence of one species becoming a different species, much less for something without any life at all becoming something alive.

DNA

I liked the next part of it, though. The weird-mercurial Spaceship of the Imagination (Still, I think “Spaceship of Factual Proof” would be a better spaceship for exploring science) shrinks smaller and smaller, ala 1966 SciFi Classic Fantastic Voyage, and eventually enters into the nucleus of a cell within the egg of a brown bear. There we get a really, really cool animation of proteins walking along girder like molecular structures – and an amazing animation of DNA.

Fantastic stuff. Loved it.

Eyeballs

Then it got stupid again.

Dr. Neil says that silly people think an intelligent being must have created life on the basis that life is too complex to have arisen by random chance. “Take the eye for example”… OK STOP. Why take an eye for example? Take the damn proteins and DNA you just showed us in a nucleus for example! Forget the eye. Look how amazingly complex that stuff is! No, Tyson wants us to take an eye for example — and sets out to demonstrate that the human eye really isn’t complex at all. Its a simple thing that just had a whole lot of time to become complex by little simple steps. He goes back to some bacteria who somehow (“randomly”) develop a trait that allows them to vaguely sense light, and this simple stuff that is photosensitive just became more and more specialized and perfected over time.

OK, neat. But I’m still freaked out about those little cities with construction workers you showed us 15 minutes ago all inside every singe nucleus of every single cell in my body, Neil. Remember that stuff you showed us about DNA – what an amazingly sophisticated, eloquent code it is for building a life form? And remember that amazingly NextGen animation of that protein-machine that pulls a DNA strand apart without damaging it, and then each side of the DNA replicates the missing side??? HOLY FUCKIN’ SHIT Neil!!! That stuff was awesome! I can’t focus on your whiz bangs about eyes right now, cuz I’m still dizzy over how cool that stuff inside the nucleus was.

So wait, tell me again, what’s so simple and randomly-constructable about a bacteria powered by these kinds of natural robotics, which somehow develops a photosensitive area in its body?

Please Neil… just because you’re backed up by graphics that make it look like everything you say is actually happening right before our eyes, and just because you say, “Its not a myth, its a scientific fact” – the left side of my brain ain’t buyin what you’re trying’ to sell in Episode 2. As soon as you let us peak inside the nucleus of a cell it became perfectly obvious that there’s nothing “simple” or “random” about even the simplest thing in nature – and the rest of your arguments just rang hollow in comparison to that roaring crescendo you (perhaps inadvertently) orchestrated.

PS

It’s not just “complexity” that warrants the theory of a sentient origin of life. Its the principle of “inertia” as well. In other words, evolution means that things change. But things will not change from a settled state unless acted upon by an outside force. So evolution implies an outside force set a settled condition in motion.

Further, adaptation and so on indicates movement towards some goal. It appears obvious that life wants to exist and survive – this is the fundamental motive of evolution, is it not? Survival? (According to prevalent theories). But insentient things have no motives - by definition. Since a motive is required for change, evolution cannot originally be driven by an insentient origin. There must be will acting upon the system, spurring it to change.

- Vraja Kishor

www.vrajakishor.com

Review of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Episode 2: “Some of the Things Molecules Do”

This episode had a few brilliant moments, but we had to sit through a whole lot of hot air in between each. I started watching the series saying I was comfortable accepting that a TV Series like this is not a scientific document, but an evangelical piece on behalf of the church of science. Still, since a core tenant of the church of science is the sacred nature of evidence one would hope that even a TV series aired on FOX would take some trouble now and then to demonstrate its logics or present its evidence, rather than simply asserting that such things exist and are acceptable beyond reasonable doubt.

In Episode 2, the show is starting to feel like its relying too much on Tyson’s persuasive charisma and the “wow” effect of computer graphics. Still I’m hoping that this will just be the worst episode, and the rest will be better.

Dogs and Bears

It starts off a little dull, with Tyson at a camp fire explaining how breeding can cause variation within a species. He calls this “evolution by artificial selection.” I don’t know, I think a more eloquent term is “breeding.” He jumps from the explanation of breeding to saying that all life as we know it evolves from simple inert molecules, without so much as a nod to the huge distance he jumped. As if showing that wolves can be bred into dogs, or that bears can change fur color (variation within existing species) is somehow perfectly valid evidence that an inert, dead molecule can somehow transform into a viable, living organism, and that this organism can change into complex life, changing entirely from one species to another.

Sorry Mr. Neil, as handsome as you are and as smooth as your voice surely is, I would raise my hand in your class and call “bullshit” on you. Anyone on any side of the evolution issue whose thought about this with minimal sincerity will honestly admit that evidence for modification within a species is not acceptable as evidence of one species becoming a different species, much less for something without any life at all becoming something alive.

DNA

I liked the next part of it, though. The weird-mercurial Spaceship of the Imagination (Still, I think “Spaceship of Factual Proof” would be a better spaceship for exploring science) shrinks smaller and smaller, ala 1966 SciFi Classic Fantastic Voyage, and eventually enters into the nucleus of a cell within the egg of a brown bear. There we get a really, really cool animation of proteins walking along girder like molecular structures – and an amazing animation of DNA.

Fantastic stuff. Loved it.

Eyeballs

Then it got stupid again.

Dr. Neil says that silly people think an intelligent being must have created life on the basis that life is too complex to have arisen by random chance. “Take the eye for example”… OK STOP. Why take an eye for example? Take the damn proteins and DNA you just showed us in a nucleus for example! Forget the eye. Look how amazingly complex that stuff is! No, Tyson wants us to take an eye for example — and sets out to demonstrate that the human eye really isn’t complex at all. Its a simple thing that just had a whole lot of time to become complex by little simple steps. He goes back to some bacteria who somehow (“randomly”) develop a trait that allows them to vaguely sense light, and this simple stuff that is photosensitive just became more and more specialized and perfected over time.

OK, neat. But I’m still freaked out about those little cities with construction workers you showed us 15 minutes ago all inside every singe nucleus of every single cell in my body, Neil. Remember that stuff you showed us about DNA – what an amazingly sophisticated, eloquent code it is for building a life form? And remember that amazingly NextGen animation of that protein-machine that pulls a DNA strand apart without damaging it, and then each side of the DNA replicates the missing side??? HOLY FUCKIN’ SHIT Neil!!! That stuff was awesome! I can’t focus on your whiz bangs about eyes right now, cuz I’m still dizzy over how cool that stuff inside the nucleus was.

So wait, tell me again, what’s so simple and randomly-constructable about a bacteria powered by these kinds of natural robotics, which somehow develops a photosensitive area in its body?

Please Neil… just because you’re backed up by graphics that make it look like everything you say is actually happening right before our eyes, and just because you say, “Its not a myth, its a scientific fact” – the left side of my brain ain’t buyin what you’re trying’ to sell in Episode 2. As soon as you let us peak inside the nucleus of a cell it became perfectly obvious that there’s nothing “simple” or “random” about even the simplest thing in nature – and the rest of your arguments just rang hollow in comparison to that roaring crescendo you (perhaps inadvertently) orchestrated.

PS

It’s not just “complexity” that warrants the theory of a sentient origin of life. Its the principle of “inertia” as well. In other words, evolution means that things change. But things will not change from a settled state unless acted upon by an outside force. So evolution implies an outside force set a settled condition in motion.

Further, adaptation and so on indicates movement towards some goal. It appears obvious that life wants to exist and survive – this is the fundamental motive of evolution, is it not? Survival? (According to prevalent theories). But insentient things have no motives - by definition. Since a motive is required for change, evolution cannot originally be driven by an insentient origin. There must be will acting upon the system, spurring it to change.

- Vraja Kishor

www.vrajakishor.com

Madhava Prabhu at Kirtan Mela Mayapur 2014 Day 2

New Vrindaban’s Transcendental Throwback Thursday – 03/20/14.

Each week we highlight an earlier era of ISKCON New Vrindaban.

This week’s challenge: Despite a slight blurriness, there are four devotees whose faces are recognizable and two with their backs to the camera. How many can you identify?

Extra Credit: What is the special name of the place they are in?

Post your guesses on the “who, what, when, where & why” in the comment section at the New Vrindaban Facebook Page.

Technical stuff: We share a photo Thursday and confirm known details Sunday. Let’s keep it light and have a bit of fun!

Special request: If you have a photo showing New Vrindaban devotees in action, share it with us and we’ll use it in a future posting.

[Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 3.3.19-23 - Uddhava speaking to Vidura]

In Dvārakā, the All-Attractive enjoyed all desirable things as a follower of Vedic and popular custom. Yet, being the soul of all, he was unattached to all of it, and fixed in a philosophical outlook.

This is the premise that Uddhava elaborates on in the rest of the section: that the Supreme Enjoyer is also the Supreme Renunicant.

The point made here is that Krishna did interact with sense objects, following the normal Vedic customs and even following mundane popular customs. However, he was unattached to these interactions, due to his enlightenment.

The next two paragraphs will elaborate, first by explaining how he truly enjoyed,  then by explaining his renunciation.

To hear his words — expressed with affectionate, smiling glances — seemed like drinking nectar. His character was flawless and the very home of beauty and grace.

Krishna does not enjoy external sense objects, he enjoys love and affection. He is renounced from external objects and attached to the pleasures of internal sensations of love. He enjoys by sharing his internal energy (love) with others.

Thus he shared joy with this world, with other worlds, and most especially with his family, the Yadus.

He shared his internal love with the normal world, and also with the higher beings on other words, but most importantly and most intimately of all he shared love with his intimate companions, who appeared as members of his family.

Among those companions the most intimate of all were his queens…

Among them he shared the most special joy with his ladies, enjoying intimate moments with them in the relaxing opportunities of the night.

I can only direct the reader to the Sanskrit poetry here (3.3.21). It is impossible for me to do it justice in English. The poetic repitition and play on the word kṣaṇa is astonishing.

While enjoying like this for many dozens of years, he certainly did so with the fullest sense of detachment from the ordinary sexuality of ordinary couples.

This makes the point that Krishna’s interactions with his queens, family and so on, is not an affair of a bewildered soul grasping towards external objects and situations to fill a void of unhappiness within. His romantic interactions with his queens, for example, was essentially not  the same as the romantic interactions of ordinary couples because his queens are a manifestation of his own internal potency, and the romantic exchanges with them is expression of the internal energy (love). In the case of ordinary couples, on the other hand, the participants see themselves externally – as objects and subjects of material energy, and their expressions are not acts of joy but acts of hunger. Krishna’s romantic deeds are nothing like this, although of course ordinary romance cannot but imitate the external form of his divine romance.

Fate controls sense objects, and fate controls those who enjoy such objects. How can anyone be dedicated to the Master of Unity, if they have serious ambitions to unite with such sense objects?

Uddhava makes a concluding argument and statement simultaneously.

Uddhava’s argument is that even the devotees of Krishna (those “dedicated to the Master of Unity”) are devoid of interest in sense objects that are under the control of material fate; so what to speak of the person they are devoted to!? He certainly cannot be an external sense object, nor can he be interested in enjoying such things.

Uddhava’s statement is that if anyone wishes to participate in this exchange of spiritual, internal pleasure and joy with the All-Attractive, he or she needs to reduce and eventually eliminate their interest in pursuing external pleasures within the realm of karma / fate.

- Vraja Kishor

www.vrajakishor.com

[Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 3.3.19-23 - Uddhava speaking to Vidura]

In Dvārakā, the All-Attractive enjoyed all desirable things as a follower of Vedic and popular custom. Yet, being the soul of all, he was unattached to all of it, and fixed in a philosophical outlook.

This is the premise that Uddhava elaborates on in the rest of the section: that the Supreme Enjoyer is also the Supreme Renunicant.

The point made here is that Krishna did interact with sense objects, following the normal Vedic customs and even following mundane popular customs. However, he was unattached to these interactions, due to his enlightenment.

The next two paragraphs will elaborate, first by explaining how he truly enjoyed,  then by explaining his renunciation.

To hear his words — expressed with affectionate, smiling glances — seemed like drinking nectar. His character was flawless and the very home of beauty and grace.

Krishna does not enjoy external sense objects, he enjoys love and affection. He is renounced from external objects and attached to the pleasures of internal sensations of love. He enjoys by sharing his internal energy (love) with others.

Thus he shared joy with this world, with other worlds, and most especially with his family, the Yadus.

He shared his internal love with the normal world, and also with the higher beings on other words, but most importantly and most intimately of all he shared love with his intimate companions, who appeared as members of his family.

Among those companions the most intimate of all were his queens…

Among them he shared the most special joy with his ladies, enjoying intimate moments with them in the relaxing opportunities of the night.

I can only direct the reader to the Sanskrit poetry here (3.3.21). It is impossible for me to do it justice in English. The poetic repitition and play on the word kṣaṇa is astonishing.

While enjoying like this for many dozens of years, he certainly did so with the fullest sense of detachment from the ordinary sexuality of ordinary couples.

This makes the point that Krishna’s interactions with his queens, family and so on, is not an affair of a bewildered soul grasping towards external objects and situations to fill a void of unhappiness within. His romantic interactions with his queens, for example, was essentially not  the same as the romantic interactions of ordinary couples because his queens are a manifestation of his own internal potency, and the romantic exchanges with them is expression of the internal energy (love). In the case of ordinary couples, on the other hand, the participants see themselves externally – as objects and subjects of material energy, and their expressions are not acts of joy but acts of hunger. Krishna’s romantic deeds are nothing like this, although of course ordinary romance cannot but imitate the external form of his divine romance.

Fate controls sense objects, and fate controls those who enjoy such objects. How can anyone be dedicated to the Master of Unity, if they have serious ambitions to unite with such sense objects?

Uddhava makes a concluding argument and statement simultaneously.

Uddhava’s argument is that even the devotees of Krishna (those “dedicated to the Master of Unity”) are devoid of interest in sense objects that are under the control of material fate; so what to speak of the person they are devoted to!? He certainly cannot be an external sense object, nor can he be interested in enjoying such things.

Uddhava’s statement is that if anyone wishes to participate in this exchange of spiritual, internal pleasure and joy with the All-Attractive, he or she needs to reduce and eventually eliminate their interest in pursuing external pleasures within the realm of karma / fate.

- Vraja Kishor

www.vrajakishor.com

We had the pleasure of attending two Gaura Purnima festivals, one at the Bhakti Centre on the Gold Coast and the other at Brisbane temple.

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 01 October 2013, Melbourne, Australia, Srimad Bhagavatam 2.3.1)

More and more devotees are becoming vegan because they say milk is not pure; so much cruelty to the cows is involved now. But Srila Prabhupada was not fanatic about this. Srila Prabhupada felt that milk was very important, that we needed it for finer brain tissue development. Even in America, when the milk was adulterated with Vitamin D which might not have been of a vegetarian source, Prabhupada said, “Don’t worry about it, just take it. We need to take milk.” So, Prabhupada sometimes seemed to be quite pragmatic in these matters.

Now they say, “But it is worse than ever. Now, we do better to become vegans.” Well, I respect these devotees but personally I feel that even if a cow is kept in a hellish condition and being mistreated, it’s a bad thing. It is bad!

I’ve seen here in Australia, many cows waiting to be put on the train. Calves, all in a pen, locked up. I was chanting japa early in the morning, there was nobody around, just these calves… something in me felt like… I sort of felt an urge to let them escape. But there was nowhere for them to go to. I felt like letting them out but they had nowhere to go! The whole planet is a prison for them. There is not a free inch of space for them. Wherever they go, they will be caught – so hellish, absolutely hellish!

But, at least if we take their milk and offer it to Krsna, they make eternal benefit! Although their suffering is hellish, it is temporary. If we don’t take their milk, we may bring some relief to them; a few, tiny drops of relief to their temporary suffering.

We don’t take their milk, okay… (booming voice), “If everyone becomes vegan and like millions and millions of people in the world don’t drink milk, then the milk industry will feel it and milk consumption will go down and less cows will have to suffer for all this. That reduces the temporary suffering of the cows! Yay! We got some temporary benefit for the suffering of those cows.”

But what if we take the milk and offer it to Krsna? We give those same cows eternal benefit that cannot be destroyed by anything. Let devotees take all the milk, as much as possible, and offer it all to Krsna! In this way, give the cows as much eternal benefit as possible. The rest of the world should become vegan (laughing). We should have lots of milk, lots of it and we give milk sweets to the vegans!

Giriraj Swami spoke during the evening part of the celebrations.

“Srila Prabhupada, at the age of seventy, and at the order of his guru maharaja, crossed the ocean and sat down under a tree and chanted Hare Krishna. He said that anyone could take Krishna consciousness to anywhere in the world by the same method. You just go to a park in the center of the town, sit down under a tree and chant Hare Krishna. And—this is Srila Prabhupada’s own words—’Immediately people will think, Who is this crazy fellow sitting and chanting in the town square? And they will come around to find out about this crazy fellow.’ Then you tell them about Bhagavad-gita and Krishna consciousness. So, this is continuing by Srila Prabhupada’s mercy and Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s mercy. All we have to do is take it and distribute it. This is the mission of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu—that you should taste the nectar of the holy name, taste love of God and distribute it—share it with others.

Gaura Purnima, ISV, 2014