A journey of faith – from Amsterdam to Vrindavan
→ KKS Blog

9362499497_c84dca81bfA journey of faith – from Amsterdam to Vrindavan, is the theme of the evening. It is kind of using my life as a means of showing how an ordinary person, by mercy of great devotees, can be uplifted. The state of the world is such that where in this age, do we find a holy place? Where in this age, do we find people who practice their religion with true sincerity? Where do we find any religion at all? Where do we find honesty? Where do we find truth? All these kind of questions are difficult to answer because whatever one says might be challenged with reasonable argument by someone else. So, it is not so easy to answer these questions but something in me was asking those kinds of perennial questions about life…

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Initiation Ceremony, August 20, New Dvaraka, Los Angeles
Giriraj Swami

_DSC0116On Lord Balarama’s appearance day, Giriraj Swami initiated Bhakta Shawn into Srila Prabhupada’s spiritual family, giving him the name Shyama Chandra Dasa. This sweet, intimate ceremony took place at the home of Bhrigupati Prabhu and Mother Chandravali. Giriraj Swami, Rtadhvaja Swami, and Bhrigupati Prabhu spoke at the ceremony.

“Now we have come to this stage, which has taken a number of years. There have been many trials and tribulations along the way, and many lessons have been learned. Sometimes lessons learned with great difficulty are more permanent. And the realization, or conviction, that there is no real happiness in the material world and that the only shelter is Krishna and His holy name is the prerequisite for really progressing in spiritual life. As long as we are thinking that this material thing or that material situation will make me happy — it’s like the tenth offense: not having complete faith in the chanting of the holy name and maintaining material attachments. But when you come to the conclusion that ‘nothing in the material world can make me happy,’ that ‘even if something makes me a little happy for a little while, it will not last and it will not fully satisfy me,’ you can actually progess. So, you have come to that conclusion. And that conviction will create the proper consciousness for further advancement.” — Giriraj Swami
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Brighupati Dasa
Rtadhvaja Swami
Giriraj Swami

Let Other Things Wait
→ Japa Group


Doing other things while chanting is not good. Still, sometimes out of expediency you do it. But you should try to put off so-called expedient actions until after chanting. Chant at a designated time and chant loudly. Let other things wait.

From the Japa Reform Notebook
by Satsvarupa dasa Goswami

The Garden of Seven Gates at The Small Farm Training Center
→ The Yoga of Ecology

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When I tell folks that my main course of study at Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York is eco-theology, I get either knowing nods or quizzical looks. In either case, it doesn't take much explanation to show that the Earth and the Divine are inherently connected, that you cannot have one without the other. As I have spent my summer getting the soil that sustains me firmly lodged in my fingernails and pores, I have been pleasantly surprised to see and feel that a calling to the service of the Earth may indeed be my calling as a service to God. My case of nature-deficit disorder may not be as severe as I first thought. I am more convinced than ever that to work and create earth-centered ecologically-sound communities and local food cultures, grounded in the timeless wisdom of ancient spiritual tradition, is the most vital justice work of our time and also the true spiritual revolution of our time.
On the surface, The Small Farm Training Center (SFTC), and its leading farm-hand Terry Sheldon, are offering a vital example of local eco-conscious community and food culture, but befitting Terry's decades-long immersion in the Vedic spiritual tradition, and the practice of bhakti-yoga, the SFTC is, at its essence, a reflection and practice of humanity's most original and natural connection to the Earth and to the Divine. On the SFTC website, Terry explains the Vedic ecology at the core of the SFTC:
"There exists a deep ecological tradition in Vedic culture by which human settlement, forests and water resources are carefully balanced. To achieve that balance, nature's welfare and human welfare cannot be separated each other. For this reason Vedic ecology teaches that the earth and the cow are to be loved and cared for as mothers. As such, culture -- including the cultivating of land for crops -- is an outward expression of spirituality. As a painting expresses the spirit of the artist, culture expresses the spirit of society. Vedic culture has lasted for many thousands of years and is still visible even today. It's a way of life that's lasts forever, is self perpetuating and regenerating."
Terry further explains that the heart of his work with the SFTC, in helping people of all colors, kinds, and classes to become "paradigm warriors" for the shift from our unsustainable corporatized-industrialized civilizational model to a sustainable Earth-centered model, is hands-on education with deep wisdom:
"Whether you're reading the sagacious words of Wendell Berry, or the biting commentary of Vandana Shiva, their conclusions are the same: The skills, aptitudes and attitudes that were necessary to industrialize the Earth are not the same as those that are needed now to heal the Earth, or to build durable economies and good communities.
We agree wholeheartedly... but our analysis goes one layer deeper to include the spiritual dimension. Without recognizing the role spirituality has traditionally played in preserving our planet's delicate web of life, we're easily tricked into believing that secular science will come-up with a green techno-fix to save the day. It's those brainy scientist types, not the sages of yore who deserve our veneration, so goes conventional thought.
If Western education has driven the planet to a point of crises, what is wrong with that education? And secondly, can any current Western educational institution -- whether it's orientation is secular or Judeo-Christian -- identify what's gone wrong and offer courageous or inspired leadership?
What's needed is not more education but education tempered with wisdom--education the teaches the value of local, the interconnectedness of everything, cooperation over competition and conscience over efficiency. Let's do an about-face. Is there a model that can dismantle the scaffolding of ideas, philosophies and ideologies that constitutes the modern world view? Let's look to the East."

Eight core tenets of sustainable development, including cow protection, vegetarianism, understanding of karma, understanding the myths of modern education, and devotion to food independence, are the foundation of the SFTC. It is these tenets at the heart of Terry's vision of "no-harm" farming and the real understanding of sustainability.
The SFTC is a living example of a no-harm mini-farm which is attempting to rewrite the landscape of eco-conscious community and local food culture in the hills of West Virginia. The "coming food revolution" that the SFTC wants to help create includes reciprocal links to networks of urban-based community gardens in schoolyards, low-income housing projects and the spaces left behind in the food desert. Terry writes that:
"No-Harm Mini-Farms will focus on food varieties that stress plant-based diets and plant-based protein sources, including milk from a resurgent family-owned dairy industry. Domesticated farm animals-especially cows-will reappear as welcomed additions to the rural and urban landscape. Animals will be protected and valued as co-authors in the revival of cereal grain production and soil fertility renewal."
For the denizens and the tillers of the SFTC, sustainability is more than just about living in the material world. The cultivation of the Garden is also a cultivation of the garden of the heart, of the soul's journey towards self-realization in loving relation to the Divine. Real sustainability, according to Terry, has as its foundation the understanding of the karmic fabric that ties all life together. The farmer, and all other living entities who work with her, must see their work with the soil as a divine service. All the energies of the work being done, if offered for the pleasure of the Divine and all living beings, if done with as little harm as possible (which excludes raising animals for slaughter), insures not only material but spiritual health, wealth, and evolution.
Terry explains:
"The real future of this whole thing is village life, where we develop ways to communicate and entertain and grow our own food, raise our children, educate, that is so location specific that it works. You develop loving, interdependent relationships with people, mutually interdependent relationships. That's our background actually. That's where were all actually coming from. That's what we're all looking for.

Defining relationships in this universe that are not competitive. They're cooperative. They're interdependent.The fact is that we're divine in origin. We are spirit souls. We are not bodies. We need a farming system and a philosophy that drives that farming system that recognizes the position of the soul and revers it as sacred. You're not completely non-violent, but it means how and when that violence is enacted. Its done very carefully.
Beyond being vegetarian is making a sacrament of your food, and in the Hare Krishna Movement this is called taking, or honoring prasadam. You re still karmically accountable for vegetables that are killed Its not as severe, but its there. You're taking life to maintain your life. How do you get out of that? I need to eat, but it always involves taking life. The way out is to make sacrament of the food. To take it from a source that's acceptable to be offered and the mentality, the consciousness of how you grow it, harvest it, store it, how you cook it, serve it, is done in spiritual consciousness. This is called honoring prasadam.
It is honoring the arrangement of nature by which all these things are given to us graciously for our sustenance so we can get on with our real business, which is self-realization."
Let me take you on a short tour of the Garden of Seven Gates, the beautiful centerpiece of the Small Farm Training Center in Moundsville, W. Va.
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The Garden of Seven Gates is a certified organic project at the forefront of the local food revolution. The Garden and its tillers produce a diversity of succulent and sanctified foodstuffs for the local New Vrindaban Krishna Consciousness community. It is also the flagship farm behind the vibrant environmental/food justice works of the Green Wheeling Initiative.
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Here Terry Sheldon, head tiller of the Garden, here uses a traditional hand-tiller to prepare a bed for a hopeful new crop of string-beans. The ethic behind the Garden is hand and heart power creating food which itself will create justice and enlightenment for the local community.
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A plethora of fresh green peppers.
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An oceanic bed of deliciously provocative jalapeños.
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The hole leading to the lair of the groundhog, the adorable yet inconsiderate creature who can't control his tongue in relation to the Garden's edibles. A remake of the cinematic classic Caddyshack is currently being filmed on the premises.
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Young tomatoes struggle through a wet and wily season of Appalachian weather to bloom and grow.
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The classic American weed-whacker we endlessly wrestle with so that we may endlessly wrestle with the endless weeds.
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Our flower patch, which is used to sumptuously decorate the altar at the Radha-Krishna temple at the New Vrindaban community.
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Fresh raspberries showing their colors.
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This was the Summer of Weed (not the happy kind necessarily). In order to clear this row to plant a late batch of winter squash, Terry and I spent nearly 8 hours hand-weeding nearly 200 feet of these ginormous weeds.
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Terry temporarily dominates the mutant-weeds.
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I've become delirious with fatigue dealing with weeds ten times my size, with roots several hundred feet deep, or at least it felt that way.
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Crossing the rubicon...
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The weeded patch now planted with winter squash topped with row cover to keep the elements and damned groundhogs from getting too rowdy.

The Teaching Garden at The Small Farm Training Center
→ The Yoga of Ecology


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In a previous blog exactly a year ago here on HuffPost, I shared the philosophy of "simple living and high thinking" as presented by the eminent Vedic teacher/scholar A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. In carrying the timeless wisdom of the bhakti-yoga tradition to the wide world outside of India, Swami Prabhupada was determined to create a profound paradigm shift that would carry our sense of civilization forward by harkening back to our natural foundation. This foundation not only consists of yogic practices designed to help us recover and restore the natural state of our being, as souls devoted to the Divine and all life, but it also consists of an ecologically-sound, agrarian way of life which in many ways is the polar opposite of the urbanized, industrialized, and technologized model of civilization we are deeply conditioned and committed to.
Swami Prabhupada dared to say that the agrarian model of life was not a backwards step. He wanted to us to understand that our reconnection to the simple life of the land was not only the most necessary forward step for our civilization, but also that it was the most necessary forward step on the journey towards our own spiritual self-realization.
Terry Sheldon, one of Swami Prabhupada's original students, has carried forward this aspect of Swami's misison with his service creating The Small Farm Training Center (SFTC), part of the New Vrindaban temple and community in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia. The Small Farm Training Center is the flagship project of the Green Wheeling Initiative (which we have previously blogged about here and here). Terry has been at the cutting-edge of political and spiritual thought throughout his life, from the radical streets of Berkeley in the 1960s to the historic spread of the bhakti-yoga tradition across the Eastern and Western world. Now he shares the conviction and living example that the local food movement, and the paradigm shift towards ecologically-sound agrarian living, is the true and most essential earthly and spiritual revolution of our time.
The Small Farm Training Center (SFTC) is a land based educational center and a hands-on working organic farm. Our purpose is to create community -- a web of supportive relationships -- by making locally grown organic foods readily available and affordable with the use of simple technology.
Although I've spent 30 plus years farming and gardening in Appalachia, I don't consider myself a "local." You might say I'm spoiled. My grandfather's farm in Northern Michigan, where I was raised, is both flat and fertile. West Virginia hillside farming is daunting. The soils here -- like the air, the streams and the people themselves -- have been used and abused for 150 years.
The "real" locals, those who can trace their heritage back for two or three generations, love Appalachia. That spark of original mountain culture permeates their very being, Unfortunately, their bodies tell a different story. Morbid obesity and diabetes are the norm. That's the price you pay when you no longer grow what you eat and eat what you grow. Like most Americans, their industrially grown food is starving them nutritionally while fattening them for the "big round-up" by the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries.
Something is out of balance. The Small Farm Training Center is one of many local organizations challenging this dying paradigm. We farm, we garden, we teach, we encourage, we improvise and most importantly we listen to input. We also call a spade a spade when it comes to identifying the political, economic, cultural and spiritual stumbling blocks to restoring the environment and securing a safe, stable food supply... We nourish both person and place.
For the past month I have been participating in the SFTC apprenticeship program with Terry and the SFTC. The program is a fountain of hands-on knowledge in relation to the ABCs of organic farming, biodiversity, composting, and the fine arts of constant sowing, seeding, and weeding. However there is an extra layer to how Terry approaches the idea of teaching and sharing. For him molding an apprentice means molding a paradigm warrior. He writes:
All privately held corporations are living a lie. They believe we live in a world where capital has the right to grow and that right is higher than the rights of people, If you're one of those people who passively accept corporate domination of America's food supply and political life, be forewarned, we don't. Corporations are no more a part of the natural order than the English monarchy was 200 years ago. They want us to believe that industrial agriculture is the only way to feed the world. That's a lie. They want us to believe that it is cheaper to destroy the earth than to take care if it in real time. That's another lie. At the heart of their economic system and theory is the proposal that life is too expensive. We disagree. We choose life and we're going to tell our own story. We're looking for paradigm warriors who can expand the conversation and are fluent in the language of inclusion, kinship and possibility.
The Small Farm Training Center apprenticeship program is about:
Learning by doing, and then teaching it to others -- that's how you earn your degree in bio-citizenship. Yoga, vegetarian cooking, and the care of farm animals -- especially milk cows -- are additional features of our curriculum. We also regularly distribute surplus organic veggies to soup kitchens and local charities. Turn off the boob-tube, shut down your laptop and pick up your hoe.
Being an apprentice here is about developing the courage to literally make the change happen, to be part of the global movement which draws us back to the foundations of natural community and civilization. It is about getting that sacred soil lodged in your fingernails and on your hands like a true badge of honor. It is about understanding the essential art of "no-harm" farming and the real definition of sustainability, as we'll discuss more in our next Yoga of Ecology blog.
For now, let me take you on a tour of one of the two gardens that make up the Small Farm Training Center. Today we will show you our Teaching Garden, and in our next blog we will check out our eight-acre Garden of Seven Gates. Join me!
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The 1/2 organic Teaching Garden provides foodstuffs and flowers for the New Vrindaban community and guests, for the sacred prasadam food offerings to the resident Deities Radha-Vrindaban Chandra, and for the outreach efforts of the Green Wheeling Initiative.
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The Teaching Garden stands with feet in both new and old paradigms, honoring and participating in the progressive ecological movement of our time by showing an example of a cow-centered farm. The practical and philosophical aspects of the Garden are based on the principles of Vedic village ecology, from Indian culture, one of history and humanity's most advanced and ecologically sound systems of agriculture.
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All fertilizer in the garden comes from the community's resident cows and goats, demonstrating that real fertility comes from living in harmony with our fellow living entities. The honoring and protection of our fellow animal community members is a deep and essential spiritual principle which insures karmic harmony and the sustainability and evolution of the soul towards self-realization for everyone involved with the Garden.
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The Teaching Garden is an example of small-scale biodiversity, empowering the local community with local food culture. The tillers of the Garden offer workshops and tours which explains the ABCs of organic farming in relation to small-scale backyard gardening, market gardening, or the art of selling and preserving organic produce, and mini-farming, growing a wide array of foods for the local community without capital-extensive, external inputs.
The Garden also has a strict reuse, recycle, and restore ethic in relation to our mechanical assistants. Hence our trusty tractor, which has been in operation since the 1940s.
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Tromboncino squash, which is resistant to squash bugs. Take that Monsanto!
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Our mint collection includes lemon-mint, chocolate mint (which tastes like a York peppermint pattie), peppermint, and spearmint.
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Dinosaur kale, whose dark-green leaves have a delicious nutty texture and remain firm in texture when cooked.
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Some of the Garden's resident sunflowers. Nectar for the eyes and soul.

New Vrindaban Celebrates its 43rd Annual Janmastami Festival
→ New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

Mother Yasoda and friends bathe Lord Krsna

Mother Yasoda and friends bathe Lord Krsna

The first ever New Vrindaban Janmastami celebration was in 1970 at the original New Vrindaban farmhouse.
Celebrate New Vrindaban’s 43rd Annual Janmastami Event, in honor of Lord Krishna’s birth.

We will celebrate on 4 separate dates, in order to accommodate all guests and devotees, namely:

Saturday Aug. 24th
Wednesday, Aug. 28th (Actual Date)
Saturday, Aug. 31st
Sunday, Sep. 1st
You can offer a Special Janmastami Kalash Abhishek to bathe the Lord!
Spend the evening dining, watching the Deities’ Swan Boat Ride and seeing the exciting firework display.

Exact schedule to be announced.

A Few Photo’s
→ simple thoughts

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Hare Krishna

Please accept my humble obesiances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada

Here are a few photos from the 2 Krishna Conscious trips I was very very very fortunate to have been on this year:

Pandava Sena Trip Villa Vrindavana;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/100637659@N06/sets/72157635187037631/

croatia

http://www.flickr.com/photos/100637659@N06/sets/72157635178856005/

your servant
dipak

ISKCON Unsung Hero’s and their Seva!
→ simple thoughts

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Each year there is a merry bunch of truly amazing devotee’s who make the festivals at our temples such a awesome time for everyone who comes; they are indeed the unsung hero’s of the day.

Many are truly inspirational having worked a full day then head off to the temple to help with all the logistics needed to make it happen; then on the day give even more time to help with each of the different departments from cleaning, catering, running the stalls, ushering, meeting and greeting.

Many of these same devotees come and serve at the temple each and every week, for some only during festival times; it’s all good, each with a smile on their face and a mood of loving devotion to serve others.







So I had to laugh when looking at the band of devotees who have inspired and encouraged me during my visits; and the hat, an odd hat that always amuses the band of marry workers for Krishna.

It is these devotees that make ISKCON the place it is; who inspire and encourage other to take up and do devotional service, who have picked me up when I am down who enthusiastically encourage my preaching work back home and charge up my spiritual batteries.

We forget these unsung hero’s but if we truly want to understand ISKCON, devotional service and full surrender to Krishna then these are the people who you want to be around; for as strange as it is as much as they inspire and encourage you, you also encourage and inspire them and you will also be mesmerized by the varied discussions about devotional life.

I’m looking forward to having all your fine association during this Janmashtami week and may we have fine association together for many many years to come.

ISKCON Educational Services at Bhaktivedanta Manor: Service Description General Manager
→ Dandavats.com

The General Manager will ensure that ISKCON Educational Services, Bhaktivedanta Manor is firmly established to flourish and expand as the most credible and authentic UK-based supplier of educational resources on Hinduism. Since 1990, IES has specialised in organising temple visits, providing guest speakers to schools, supplying high-quality teaching support and selling authentic educational materials. Read more ›

Wednesday, August 21st, 2013
→ The Walking Monk

Many People

Oxbow, Saskatchewan

There’s a remarkable migration of tiny frogs attempting the journey over the highway.  Many casualties occur I’m afraid.  They’ve got guts doing this, boy do they ever have guts.

It’s people that I meet like crazy.  The first person stops his vehicle, raises his iPhone for a picture and asks, “What’s up?”

“I’m on a walk across Canada.”  The fellow was impressed, he was very poetic.

“Holy _____ !  Good luck!”  At least the words rhymed.

The walk was news to this guy who works in the oil fields which are all around.  Many other folks were quite aware though – the oil riggers, farmers, students on holidays, seniors on chores.  It seems that even though I pulled of the road over a month ago to attend Canada and US spiritual fests, there was a buzz lingering about a roaming monk, and so the reception was phenomenal.

At one point a heavy rain came.  83 year old Mr. Swayze pulled over and let me into his passenger seat until rain let up.  Mr. Swayze, although retired, took up work again.  He was on his way to getting a bridge constructed.  He told me, “If you do nothing you start to deteriorate.  Since I took up this recent assignment, my brains got sharp again."

Words of wisdom.

I walked through several towns, Glen Ewen was the name of one.  People were sitting outside a pub.  The owner offered water (of course, I won’t take hard drinks).  I went inside, so did all who were sitting in the sun.  They were curious.  All the walls were adorned with large pictures of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean.  The owner, a woman, asked what I thought of Marilyn from a monk’s perspective.

“Overrated.  Not my idea of the emblem of true womanhood.”  The folks there respected my opinion.  They had oodles of questions.

“So, you’ve been celibate all your life?” asked the owner.  People were sipping beer and were in rapt attention.

“Yes.  When I was in high school I had one or two girlfriends.  I came close once but God said, ‘No, not now,’ (laughter).”

One fellow asked if he could be a monk and drink.

“You’d be a drinking monk (laughter).  No, as a monk, you learn self discipline.”

Back on the road again.  Numerous people stopped to talk.  It got to the point where it was hard to make progress as far as distance was concerned.  It was a nice problem, I’ll admit.

By nightfall, I got nearer to our campsite spot, an ideal location by the serene Souris River.  Daruka was anxious about my being late, so he went out looking for me.  A local woman, big hearted as anything, came on the search as well.  She figured out what we needed for our outdoor cooking.  She had gone home, brought rye bread, fruits, and a camp lamp to contend with the darkness.  Archie was her name.  The people I met were in great numbers, quite overwhelming.  Archie came at the end and showed an incredible level of devotion.  Thank you, Archie.

36 KM

ISKCON Temple in Kannur, Kerala
→ Dandavats.com

Tucked away in a narrow by lane of Moopanpara, Chirakkal in Kannur is ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), a cradle of calm and peace. Finding your way to the temple can be a tricky affair with absence of any signage that could lead you towards it: no devotees, no meditating bhaktas or no boards announcing, ‘Yes, this is the way to the ISKCON Temple’. Read more ›

15.07 – When fulfilling desires doesn’t translate into fulfillment
→ The Spiritual Scientist

We all have so many desires for so many worldly things.

However, because we live in a world of finite resources and a body with limited capacities, we can’t fulfill most of our desires.  But our infatuation with such desires and our frustration at being unable to fulfill them that we become blind to a fundamental reality. The reality that fulfilling such desires doesn’t bring fulfillment.

Why? Because those desires are peripheral to our identity as immortal souls, who are eternal parts of Krishna, as the Bhagavad-gita (15.07) indicates. Parts who become whole only by connecting with him through spiritual love.

To translate fulfilled desires into fulfillment, Gita wisdom urges us to cultivate desires for Krishna. The desire to be solaced and strengthened by his healing grace. The desire to share his love with the world. The desire to do justice to the gifts he has given us. The desire to bring glory to him by our conduct and character. And, most of all, the desire to please him, just as a lover desires to please the beloved.

The wonderful thing about such devotional desires is that they don’t have to be fulfilled to grant us fulfillment. Just cultivating those desires and striving to fulfill them takes us closer to Krishna, helps us remember him more and serve him better. And that enriched Krishna consciousness in and of itself brings great fulfillment.

No doubt, the more we become truly conscious of Krishna, the more we do all our activities with greater conscientiousness, seeing them as services to him. And that increases our chances of succeeding in those activities.

Nonetheless, irrespective of whether we succeed in fulfilling specific desires or not, cultivating Krishna consciousness guarantees us success in the generic mission of our life: attaining fulfillment. Fulfillment that lasts forever.

***

The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind.

The translation of Manu Samhita by Linda Berce
→ Dandavats.com

I live in Latvia, in a town named Lielvarde. I am a student, studying translation. I am now working on my Bachelor’s paper. The topic is the translation of Manu Samhita. I have chosen to connect my interest, the Vedas, with education. I was introduced to the Krishna consciousness movement about four years ago and was captivated by its goals, philosophy, personalities, and the fact that I could find all the answers I wanted. Read more ›

Prabhupada Letters :: Anthology 2013-08-23 08:15:00 →

1968 August 23: "I have decided to publish Srimad-Bhagavatam in 12 volumes, naming them differently in this way; 1st vol., Creation; 2nd vol., Cosmic Manifestation; 3rd vol., Status Quo; 4th vol., Mercy of God; 5th vol., Creative Energy; 6th vol., The Rulers of the Universe; 7th vol., Activities of God; 8th vol., Dissolution; 9th vol., Liberation; 10th vol., Ultimate Goal; 11th vol., General History; 12th vol., The Age of Deterioration."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1968

Won’t adjusting according to time-place-circumstances lead to deviations?
→ The Spiritual Scientist

As regards the Gita daily article "Be flexible, but not fickle" I am not able to understand that how far we can stretch flexibility taking excuse of Time, Place and Circumstances say for example Women becoming Sanyasins, wearing saffron( As from Srila Prabhupada's purports in SB, Daksh-Shiva past times only a yogini when she is giving up her body can change to Saffron), homosexuals being initiated and staying in Bramcharis Ashrams. As far my understanding goes Srila Prabhupada categorically stated that whatever dilution had to be done in the practices has been done by him and there should not be any further dilution. If we just keep two practices of mantra meditation and scriptual study of Srila Praphupada intact and apply Time, Place Circumstance yardstick to others then tomorrow Onion garlic food would come to temples,gays would become gurus and the list may go on. Of course I am not an authority and have no right to comment on an institutions working, but whatever I feel from my heart, I have stated and am not even sure if this comes in the category of Vaishnav Apradha.
Could you please enlighten and reply to me?
BEST REGARDS ALWAYS,
Cdr. Sandeep Chadha(Retd.) [STOKA KRSNA DAS]

Sentence Building & Capitalization
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In 3rd Grade, we’ve begun a detailed study of English Grammar.  The focus this month has been Capitalization.  Do you know how many capitalization rules there are for the English language?  Proper nouns, uncles & aunts names, names of languages, streets, buildings, professions, parks, cities, states, and so much more!  Tons to remember!

To help student remember the long list of rules for Capitalization, we took the list from the Easy Grammar Workbook and built sentences using Grammar Cards.   Wacky and weird sentences.  With a whole variety of common and proper nouns, students had to decide which words would be capitalized and which lowercase.  They paired these nouns with exciting action verbs.  They partnered up, wrote the sentences and shared them with the class.

Some examples:
“The gorilla in the Empire State Building tumbled down the stairs.”  (I smile just thinking of their gleeful laughs as we all pictured a gorilla tumbling.)

“The owl and the polar bear got lost in Detroit.”

When their sentences were built, we shared them!  We made long imaginative stories with each one!  What fun it was!  Take a look above!