Planet ISKCON

Special Day Meditation Podcast

Special Day Meditation Podcast

Special Day Meditation Podcast

Special Day Meditation Podcast

Special Day Meditation Podcast

Special Day Meditation Podcast

Special Day Meditation Podcast

Special Day Meditation Podcast

Special Day Meditation Podcast

Camera: Polaroid Automatic 100
Film: Fuji FP-100C (reclaimed negative)

It’s a shame that the geodesic dome never fully caught on. Sure, they’re ridiculously impractical, wasteful, prone to leaks, and prohibitively expensive, but they look great and isn’t that worth it? Well, maybe not. But seeing one in an otherwise natural environment gives me the juxtaposition I adore.

No reason not to throw in a few old buses to obscure the time when the shot was taken. Makes me want to watch Laser Floyd.

–

Flickr.

When I first met my Guru Maharajah he gave me a challenge to use my work as a way of sharing love of Krishna so it was with some great delight to hold the second Diwali celebration; with the help of Bridgend People’s First who arranged the hall.

It was also a great delight that one of the wonderful devotees who go to Bhaktivadant Manor Mena Mataji offered to make a wonderful cake based on the theme of the Ramayana: their was a cake with Mother Sita on it, one with Ravana on it and one with Lord Rama, Laxman and Hanuman. The attention to detail also included the stones with Ram written on them.

Mother Sita On a Cake of Her Own

Lord Rama Lazman Hanuman Ready to do battle against Ravana

Ravana Ready to do battle with his ten heads showing

The amazing scene based on the Ramayana Story

Over 40 people attended, it was a delight to see how many got involved and also offered a small light to Sri Krishna for those who didn’t feel too confident offered a small flower, danced for the deities and enjoyed the small but humble feast of prasadma put on.

The small community hall filled ready for the start of the celebrations

Flowers and confetti was thrown to make the place nice for Lord Rama’s return

Vijay Prabhu lead a small kirtan whilst we had a small arati performed which always mesmerizing which was something I was unable to do last year given the logistics of presenting Krishna Consciousness on my own; so the help this year was really appreciated and I ow a big debt of gratitude to these two wonderful devotees.

The cake also made it easier to tell the story of how Lord Rama returned back to Lanka following his exile.

In the end we discussed with the co-ordinator of Bridgend People’s First next years Diwali celebration’s and the need to hold it in a bigger hall so that more community groups can be invited and join in; it was also wonderful that so many of people enjoyed their taste of Krishna Consciousness; indeed to be invited to some more school’s and community groups is wonderful.

I would encourage anyone and everyone to hold a small Diwali Celebration for their local community especially during the month of Kartika it is the sweetest feeling ever.

Ads, promos, billboards fill us with ideas of what all we need. Some of these things may be our actual needs, but many are simply superfluous trinkets that we mistake as our needs due to the outer propaganda blitz.

To seek without intelligently, we need to see within diligently. Seeing within means to contemplate our cherished values and our deepest aspirations. To see within more clearly, time-honored wisdom texts like the Bhagavad-gita serve as inner torchlights.

Gita wisdom helps us understand our true identity as souls and our eternal life of love in relationship with the all-attractive Supreme Being, Krishna. And it helps distinguish our core self and its central concerns from outer persuasions that have lodged themselves in our mind and are unscrupulously masquerading as “needs.” Once we make this distinction, we get two benefits: relief from pursuing un-necessities, and release for pursuing necessities. Thus by seeing within, we learn what to seek without. This is demonstrated in the setting of the Bhagavad-gita wherein Arjuna while being on the verge of fighting a history-defining war faced an emotional breakdown. Krishna through the Gita’s message helped him to see within, and thereby understand how and why to act without.

Significantly, the flow of insights is bi-directional. By seeking without, we learn to see within. When we strive to achieve something externally, the ensuing struggle tests our inner muscles, our grit and determination. More importantly, it helps us recognize the compatibility or incompatibility of our outer actions with our inner aspirations, thereby showing us the room for course corrections.

We often crave and slave for the things that the world glamorizes. But gaining those things often turns our to be an anti-climax – they give a short-lived titillation followed by a prolonged, in fact permanent, letdown. Most people try to get rid of this emptiness by seeking something else glamorized by the world. But astute people recognize this emptiness as a prompt for soul-searching, for enriching themselves with a clearer understanding of who they are and what will make them happy.

Moreover, our inner values are tested and toughened when we try to live them in the outer world. That’s why the Gita urged Arjuna not to renounce world, but to utilize it in the service of God and all living beings. By doing our outer responsibilities in a mood of service to the Supreme, we become enriched with epiphanies, as the Bhagavad-gita (9.2) indicates. Thus by seeking without, we learn to see within better.

This symbiosis of our inner and outer worlds is the key to a meaningful and joyful life.

Last night I was thinking of the mantras of the Veda appearing like a lotus around Krishna and  in my mind saw the Vedas just like rivers of attractive transcendental sounds. I’ve never heard anything like that before, afaik.

So for little while I was thinking the Vedas are like beautifully assembled waves flowing through time. Then a few seconds later in the podcast I was hearing, HH Bhakti Vikas Swami says “The Vedas are like rivers,” and begins talking more about the Vedas being like rivers.

I suppose these rivers are also the ropes I’ve heard are given for me to climb out of the well of ignorance. These ropes I have been climbing for a very long time in different ways, but I cannot again see the origin of the rope.

Maybe I can somehow catch Krishna with these ropes, but I am afraid Krishna won’t come near because He knows I would try that.

I have heard Krishna is Damodara and can be bound by ropes of love, but how can I find these ropes? Where can I get the ropes that will catch and bind Krishna?

Are the Vedas those ropes? I don’t think so. They are very fine, but Krishna is so much finer, and I am fairly sure He isn’t very fond of anything coarse.

The fabric of love for catching Krishna must be so soft that Krishna wants to get wrapped in it. Any such ropes must be the most precious objects in the world.

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Holy Name Meditation Podcast

Event: Community Dialog

Date: Sunday, November 10th, 2013

Time: 3 to 5 pm, following the Sunday Temple Program

Place: Under the Lodge

Dear Brijabasis,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

As you may be aware, the board members of ISKCON New Vrindaban and ECO-Vrindaban will gather for a bi-annual face to face joint boards’ meeting the weekend of November 8th through the 10th, 2013.

On behalf of the board members, I humbly invite all New Vrindaban residents and well-wishers for a Community Dialog.

Our continuing theme: “How can we better serve you?”

Additional topics include:

Furthering Srila Prabhupada’s five primary instructions for New Vrindaban.

Increasing communication, cooperation, transparency and trust in our ongoing “Improving Community Spirit” efforts.

Sharing highlights from the board members’ discussions.

We would also like to hear your suggestions. Please take this opportunity to express your cares and concerns, ask questions and engage in an open conversation.

We appreciate your participation and look forward to seeing you!

Hare Krishna.

Your servant,

Jaya Krsna dasa

HH Indradyumna Swami 2012 09 19

Answer Podcast

Answer Podcast

(Gita-daily completes two years today. All the 731 articles till date are available date-wise and chapter-wise on Gitadaily.com.)

Einstein, Emerson, Thoreau, Huxley, Hesse …I was amazed that this list that seemed like an intellectual who’s who in recent world history was actually a list of thinkers who had appreciated the Gita.

As I had been born and brought up in India, the place where the Gita was spoken millennia ago, I was familiar with it as an ancient Hindu text. I had even memorized some of its verses for verse recitation contests. But I had no idea that its contents would interest the modern mind, leave alone be praised by some of the greatest modern minds.

Reading such appreciations of the Gita motivated me to study it seriously. After reading several Gita commentaries by well-known spiritual teachers, I came across the Gita rendition that I found most relevant: the Bhagavad Gita As It Is by Srila Prabhupada, the founder-acharya of ISKCON. Studying it in the association of Krishna devotees initiated an intellectual adventure that continues till this day. This adventure has involved studying the commentaries of many illustrious saintly teachers from the past, discussing the Gita with contemporary devotee-scholars, memorizing and relishing its verses, and choosing to dedicate my life to sharing Gita wisdom. All this intellectual engagement with the Gita has helped me understand it better – and has also helped me better understand how there is so much more to understand in it.

Now with the holistic understanding of the Gita provided by the bhakti tradition when I look back at those appreciations, I can see how they point to the glory of Gita wisdom.

Insights on essential questions

“When I read the Bhagavad-gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous.”

-       Albert Einstein, Noble Laureate German Scientist

We live amidst information overload that makes us susceptible to intellectual malfunction – inability to contemplate life’s essential questions. Data on hundreds of subjects from hundreds of sources swamps us through newspapers, TV and the Internet. Much of this information is irrelevant to our core concerns; knowledge about the favorite food of a popular actor, as is often tested in TV quizzes about trivia, hardly matters after the program.

The Bhagavad-gita leaves such intellectual superficiality far behind by explicitly declaring (13.12) that spiritual knowledge is the most important among all branches of knowledge. Significantly, it doesn’t let spiritual knowledge remain in the realm of remote abstractions. It brings that knowledge to bear on issues that lie at the heart of our existential dilemma: who we are, what our role in the world is and how we can find real happiness. It underscores that we are not just physical bodies, but are spiritual beings; our purpose is to harmonize with the underlying order that pervades the universe; and harmonizing thus by learning to love the Supreme Being, Krishna, grants us supreme fulfillment.

The Gita’s sophisticated theistic framework, as evident, for example, in its delineation (9.5-10) of Krishna’s relationship with the world, provides exciting insights for reconciling age-old conflicts between science and religion. The mainstream scientific worldview implies that the cosmos functions as an impersonal mechanism governed by universal immutable laws. Conventional religion implies that such laws can be superseded by a personal God who bestows grace and intervenes to help his worshipers.

In this conflict, those who side with science usually have to settle for some kind of deism. But this reduces God to a mere first cause, a passive observer unable to intervene on behalf of his devotees – a notion unacceptable to the religious mind that is nourished by God’s independence to be merciful. Those who side with religion frequently have to settle for an arbitrarily miracle-working God – a notion unpalatable to the scientific mind that thrives on the orderliness that characterizes the universe.

How does the Gita help resolve this conflict?

By outlining a profound theistic framework wherein God, Krishna, plays a fascinating double-role. It presents a multi-level conception of God as both a neutral overseer (Paramatma) and a reciprocal lover (Bhagavan). The understanding of God as a neutral overseer provides room for the universe to function as law-governed mechanism. And its simultaneous parallel understanding of God as a reciprocal lover provides room for divine intervention.

No doubt, the conflict is philosophically complicated and the two-level conception of God is theologically intricate. So, this article won’t go into a comprehensive resolution; it intends to serve as an introduction to the impressive scope and depth of Gita wisdom. The same principle applies to the other complex issues addressed in the remaining sections.

Systematic guidance for spiritual evolution

“The Bhagavad-gita is the most systematic statement of spiritual evolution of endowing value to mankind. It is one of the most clear and comprehensive summaries of perennial philosophy ever revealed; hence its enduring value is subject not only to India but to all of humanity.”

-       Aldous Huxley, English writer

Perennial philosophy centers on two vital principles: understanding the perennial, the function of the head; and loving the perennial, the function of the heart. Gita wisdom boosts both the head and the heart in their voyage towards the eternal.

For the head, the Gita explains that reality comprises three levels: the arena of material forms that is temporary; the arena of formlessness that lies at the threshold of eternity; and the arena of spiritual forms that lies at the heart of life in eternal reality. We can visualize these three levels in a graphical representation of reality as a continuum along the y-axis. The lower, negative side of the axis represents material reality. The upper, positive side refers to spiritual reality. And the zero point refers to the transition where matter ends and spirit begins. These three levels can also be alternatively referred to as (material) personal, impersonal and spiritual personal or trans-personal.

Thus the Gita provides an inclusive framework for contextualizing and integrating notions of reality that have emerged in various traditions throughout the world. Its non-sectarian understanding of the Absolute Truth is evident in the Gita (14.4) that declares Krishna to be the father of not just all human beings but also of all living beings. The same universal spirit is manifest in the Gita (10.08) that declares Krishna to be the source of everything.

For the heart, the Gita offers a positive role for emotions: they can be reinvented as roads to spiritual perception instead of being rejected as roadblocks. It first underscores that material emotions act as roadblocks because they distort our vision, making undesirable worldly things seem desirable. So it repeatedly (2.38, 9.28, 12.19, for example) urges us to evolve spiritually and grow beyond the grip of those emotions.

But Gita wisdom refuses to let the material level have a monopoly on emotions. It indicates that spiritual emotions – emotions of the soul for Krishna and through Krishna for others – are our original, natural emotions of which material emotions are pale shadows. It declares (15.19) that the ultimate spiritual reality is personal and lovable, and can be approached with devotional affection (10.10 – bhajataam priti purvakam). Thus it celebrates spiritual emotions as roads to reality. In fact, it deems (4.10) love for Krishna to be the crown of reality, life’s greatest achievement.

Overall, the Gita presents spiritual perfection not as an emotionally barren void or oneness, but as an emotionally fertile arena of endless love between Krishna and all living beings.

East-West theistic synthesis

“The Bhagavad-gita is an empire of thought and in its philosophical teachings Krishna has all the attributes of the full-fledged monotheistic deity and at the same time the attributes of the Upanishadic absolute.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher

The Western conception of a personal God is emotionally appealing but intellectually unappealing. The Eastern conception of an impersonal absolute is intellectually appealing but emotionally unappealing. The Gita’s revelation of God as Krishna is both intellectually and emotionally appealing. Here’s how.

Emotionally, the idea of a personal God who protects and guides appeals to our innate need for relationships and reciprocation. Without them, existence becomes an emotional wasteland. Yet most notions of a personal God in the Western theistic traditions can’t survive serious intellectual scrutiny.

Intellectuals like to go beyond appearance to substance, to the first principle, to the root cause of things. So they often consider anything that has form and personality superficial and external. They feel impelled to go beyond to some deeper underlying universal truth. Thus for example, the notion of a God as an old man with a long beard who sends thunderbolts to cast the sinful into the fires of hell for eternal damnation strikes thinking people as primitive and parochial.

To those who wish to go beyond appearance to substance, the Gita offers an arena of non-differentiated oneness known as Brahman, the impersonal conception of the Absolute. But it also urges such intellectual seekers to probe deeper, and recognize transcendental individuality and variety within spiritual homogeneity. The Gita (14.27) indicates that the transcendental person, Krishna, resides in his full glory beyond the Brahman effulgence. He is the support of Brahman and is the ultimate spiritual reality.  In the supreme spiritual arena, he eternally reciprocates love with all those who choose to love him. This vision of the supreme spiritual arena as a world of endless love is eminently emotionally fulfilling.

Thus by revealing a personal absolute who exists beyond all the sectarian categories that characterize the world of matter – categories that intellectual wish to transcend, the Gita offers an East-West synthetic understanding of God that appeals emotionally and intellectually.

The blossoming of philosophy into religion

“The marvel of the Bhagavad-gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life’s wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion.”

-       Herman Hesse, German poet

The bane of most modern philosophy is its divorce from any transformational methodology for experiential verification. Most modern philosophers, no matter how brilliant, reign largely in the arena of armchair speculation. Philosophy divorced from transformational methodology loses its social relevance and becomes the shrunken domain of Ivory tower intellectuals who agonize over semantics. In popular culture, philosophy is superseded by pop psychology, wherein self-help platitudes gain center-stage and wisdom becomes redefined as soothing sound bites. People futilely look for help from self-help without looking for the self.

Gita wisdom shows us the way out of this plight. It couples philosophy and religion into an integrated whole that serves as a potent tool for self-transformation and God-realization. The Bhagavad-gita (9.2) indicates that it offers the king of all knowledge (raj-vidya) that can be verified by direct personal experience (pratyakshavagam). Thus the Gita’s approach to exploring reality is bold, invitational and scientific. It presents theoretical propositions about the nature of reality – we are souls who have an eternal loving relationship with the all-attractive Supreme, Krishna. And it presents the experimental methodology centered on the yoga of love, bhakti-yoga, for inner verification of its theory.

The Gita’s philosophy, far from being a matter of armchair speculation, focuses on the issue closest to our heart: love. Gita wisdom explains how life’s driving force is existence’s crowning reality – the love that activates us in our daily life when purified and redirected towards Krishna becomes the supreme reality to which even the Supreme submits in his world of endless love.

And the Gita’s religion is far removed from conventional religions that ask followers to pray, pay and obey. It invites devotee-seekers to analyze, utilize and actualize its wisdom through personal practice – practice that Krishna rewards with proportional divine revelation, as indicated in the Gita (4.11). Thus, the philosophy of love blossoms into a religion of love, wherein all our daily activities, whether spiritual or secular, become integrated into a magnificent master plan. This plan aims for our purification and restoration in the eternal world of love to which we actually belong and for which we subconsciously long.

Comprehension through spiritual tuning

“In order to approach a creation as sublime as the Bhagavad-gita with full understanding it is necessary to attune our soul to it.”

- Rudolph Steiner, Austrian social reformer

The Bhagavad-gita indicates (4.3) that its mystery is revealed to those who have tuned their hearts with the Absolute through devotion. What the Gita offers is not just a different worldview for intellectual titillation but a different world to view for emotional transformation. A blind person can speculate endlessly about the nature of an elephant, but such speculation can never provide the understanding available through surgical restoration of vision. Analogously, the Gita (15.10-11) indicates that those who are stuck at the material level due to their attachments are blind to spiritual reality. Those who break free from the fetter of matter by diligent practice of yoga and raise their consciousness to the spiritual level become healed of this blindness; they perceive spiritual truth with the eyes of knowledge (jnana-chakshu). The most complete spiritual cognition comes, as the Gita (11.53-54) indicates, to those who cultivate a heart of devotion.

This devotional tuning characterized the words, the actions, indeed the life of Srila Prabhupada. When George Harrison asked him how one could recognize an authentic Gita commentator, Srila Prabhupada replied in essence that the Gita was a call to love Krishna, so an authentic Gita commentator had to be a Krishna lover.

Through his personal example and his philosophical exposition, Srila Prabhupada unleashed the supremely transformational power of divine love. He thus opened for millions worldwide the door to not just intellectual comprehension of Gita wisdom but also to devotional realization of Krishna’s love. By this appealing spiritual egalitarianism, he transformed hippies into “happies”, changing aimless lost people with self-defeating habits into purposeful and joyful devotees of Krishna dedicated to the service of humanity.

Hope amidst hopelessness

"When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and I see not one ray of hope on the horizon, I turn to Bhagavad-Gita and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. Those who meditate on the Gita will derive fresh joy and new meanings from it every day."

-       Mahatma Gandhi

Life is a battle filled with regular obstacles and occasional reversals. Maintaining our morale amidst these stresses and distresses is often difficult, sometimes impossible. When we become demoralized, we lose the battle before we fight the battle, for we lose the will to fight.

We can best preserve the will to fight by linking ourselves with a transcendent reality that is forever secure, far beyond the threats and tribulations of material existence. Gita wisdom reveals that world to be Krishna’s world of love. The link to that world is loving remembrance of Krishna, remembrance especially of how he tirelessly prepares the way for us to reach that world, no matter what the hazards along the way.

Gita wisdom solaced and strengthened Arjuna in his worst crisis, when in the face of the most important battle of his life, his emotions went on an over-drive and dragged him into an abyss of confusion and dejection. Meditation on the Gita’s verses has the power to heal and thrill, as testified (18.76-77) by one of its first conveyors, Sanjay.

The Gita’s empowering potential beckons each one of us. By contemplating its wisdom, we can guide our thoughts beyond the immediate to the ultimate, beyond the circumstantial to the eternal, beyond matter to Krishna. Thus, we can find the supreme shelter, the supreme strength, the supreme satisfaction. That is the Gita’s greatest gift and life’s ultimate achievement.

Camera: Polaroid Automatic 100
Film: Fuji FP-100C (reclaimed negative)

Having the ability to take “portrait” shots is something that doesn’t happen much when you usually shoot 6×6 photos. With a square frame, turn the camera any way you like and you’ve still got a square. Since I usually take photos that include the horizon, I even view my square shots as landscapes.

So when I actually have the chance to take a “portrait” shot (and take advantage of it), it really throws me off. I think I shot it this way to avoid seeing the modern interstate to the right of it.

Again, you can see the bleach marks, as well as some large scratches on the negative, which are probably from being tossed in the back of the car after peeling the photo.

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Flickr.

Last year, Iskcon’s Radha Rasabihari temple in Mumbai, opened a brand new school about 15 minutes drive from the temple and named it Bhaktivedanta Mission School. The school, which is 7 floors high, comprises many classrooms, an assembly hall, performing arts theatre and different recreational areas.