Planet ISKCON

Please view the gallery: Gundicha Marjanam The day prior to Ratha Yatra is Gundica Marjana, the cleaning of Gundica temple takes place to welcome Lord Jagannath, Baladeva and Subhadra. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu performed Gundica Marjana with great jubilation. By cleaning the Lord’s temple, one’s mind becomes purified. “In this way all the quarters of the [...]

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Sri Sri Radha Vrindabanchandra’s Pushpa Abishek Celebration, 2011.

What: Pushpa Abhishek and Swan Boat Festival.

When: Saturday, July 27th 2013.

Where: Sri Sri Radha Vrindabanchandra’s Temple of Understanding.

For two years, New Vrindaban has been celebrating Puspa Abhishek, an elaborate & fragrant flower petal bathing ceremony, of Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Vrindabanchandra. We would be very honored if you would join us in serving the Deities during this vibrant and colorful ceremony!

While New Vrindaban gardners have been lovingly growing an abundance flowers in preparation for this festival, feel free to bring your own flowers to offer as well.

After the Puspa Abhishek, the enchanting Swan Boat will float majestically around the lake, accompanied by a brilliant display of fireworks and an enthusiastic Hare Krsna kirtan.

“Fellowship With Devotees” – lecture by Her Grace Urmila Devi Dasi – June 5, 2013

Here’s a little diddy I did in 1999, my dad just put it back online.

http://www.dicara.com/Members/vic/Jedi/index.htm

It’s not enough to say that God is merciful. We have to qualify that mercy. The mercy is not only about pulling us out of the material world, but the mercy is also about giving us the spiritual world and giving us an eternal activity and eternal engagement.

And here we see something about the eternal engagement. When Krsna comes to the material world and performs all these pastimes, then he shows us a bit of the eternal engagement.

Edward is a former technical contractor and CIA employee who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), before leaking details of classified NSA mass surveillance programs to the press.

Most of this article is based on an interview Mr. Snowden gave to journalist Glenn Greenwald, plus a few thoughts of my own in the last section.

NSA ILLEGALLY SPIES ON AMERICANS

NSA and the intelligence community in general are focused on getting intelligence wherever it can, by any means possible. It believes, on the grounds of self-certification, that they serve the national interest. Originally we saw that focus was very narrowly tailored for intelligence gathered overseas. Now we see that it is increasingly happening domestically. To accomplish this, the NSA specifically targets the communications of everyone, ingests the data by default, and collects it in a system where it is filtered, analyzed, and stored for periods of time. They believe it is the easiest, most efficient and most valuable way to achieve intelligence.

While they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government who they suspect of terrorism, they are collecting your communications to do so. Any analyst at any time can target anyone, any selector anywhere. Where those communications will be picked up, depends on the range of the sensor networks and the authorities that that analyst is empowered with. Not all analysts have the ability to target everything. But some certainly have the authority to wire tap anyone from you or your accountant to federal judge to even the president if they had the personal email.

WHY SHOULD PEOPLE CARE ABOUT SURVEILLANCE?

Because even if you are not doing anything wrong, you are being watched and recorded, and the storage capability of these systems consistently increases every year by orders of magnitude; it can get to the point where you don’t have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call and then they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you ever made, every friend you ever discussed something with; they can attack you on that basis to derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.

TO WHISTLE-BLOW OR NOT

When you are in positions of privileged access, like the system administrator for the intelligence community agencies, you are exposed to a lot more information and on a broader scale than an average employee. Because of that you see things that may be disturbing. Over the course of a normal person’s career, you would see only one or two of these instances. But when you have access to everything, you see them on a more frequent basis and you recognize that some of these things are actually abuses.

When you talk to people about abuse in a work place where abuse is the normal state of business, people tend not to take it very seriously. But over time the awareness of wrongdoing builds up and you feel compelled to talk about it. However, the more you talk about it, the more you are ignored, the more you are told it is not a problem until eventually you realize that these things need to be determined by the public and not by somebody who is simply hired by a government.

SNOWDEN COULD’VE DONE IT ANONYMOUSLY

Snowden could have leaked the bad news anonymously, but he thinks that the public is owed an explanation of the motivations for the disclosures, especially by people who live outside of the democratic model.

When someone is subverting the power of a democratic government, that is fundamentally dangerous to democracy; ironically, the US government consistently subverts its own power. When its leaders want to benefit from the secret actions they took, they will tell the press about things that will help get the public on their side. But they rarely, if ever, inform the public when the abuse of power occurs. It falls to individual citizens to inform themselves.

Snowden is not different than anyone else. He is just another guy who sits day to day in his office, watching what is happening and thinking, “This is something that is not the agency’s place to decide. The public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong.” Snowden is willing to go on record to defend the authenticity of his leaks.

POSSIBLE GOVERNMENT RESPONSE

Snowden could have people come after him; he is wanted by the CIA. That is a fear he will have to live with for the rest of his life; however long that happens to be. You can’t come forward against the world’s most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk. They are such powerful adversaries that no one can meaningfully oppose them. If they want to get you, they will get you in time. But, at the same time, you have to make a determination about what it is that is important to you. If living on freely but comfortably is something you are willing to accept, than you can get up every day, go to work, collect your large pay check for relatively little work but against the public interest, and go to sleep at night after watching your shows. But if you realize that is the world you helped create and it is going to get worse with future generations, who will extend the capabilities of this sort of architectural oppression, you realize that you might be willing to accept any risk; that it doesn’t matter what the outcome is so long as the public gets to make the decision as to how that’s applied.

WHY CHINA, APPARENT RIVAL OF THE U.S.?

There are some insertions regarding the choice by Snowden to seek shelter in Hong Kong.

The first is that China is an enemy of the US. It is not. There are conflicts between the US government and the Chinese government, but the people inherently don’t care. We trade with each other freely and we are not at war. We are not in an armed conflict. We are the largest trading partners out there.

Additionally, Hong Kong has a strong tradition of free speech. People think China is a great firewall. China does have significant restrictions on free speech, but the people of Hong Kong have a long tradition of protesting in the streets, of making their views known. Internet, for example, is not filtered in Hong Kong, not more than in the States.

WHAT IF SNOWDEN WANTED TO HARM THE U.S.?

Anyone with the position of access and with the technical capabilities that Snowden had could suck out secrets and pass them on the open market, to Russia, for example. They always have an open door, as the US does. Snowden had access to the entire intelligence community and undercover assets all around the world, the locations of every station, what their missions are and so forth. If he had just wanted to harm the US, he could have shut down the surveillance system in an afternoon, for example. But that does not seem to be his intention. For anyone making that argument, one needs to think if one was in that position; living a privileged life, living in Hawaii, in paradise, making a ton of money. What would it take to make you leave everything behind?

GREATEST FEAR

The greatest fear that Snowden has regarding the outcome for America in the wake of the exclosures about the NSA’s illegal surveillance of American citizens, is that nothing will change. That people will see in the media all these exclosures, they will know the length that the government is going to unilaterally grant themselves powers to create greater control over American society, and global society, but they will not be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things, to force their representatives to actually take a stand in their interests. Not only will nothing change, but months ahead, years ahead, it is only going to get worse, until eventually there will be a time where policies will change and a new leader elected. They’ll flip the switch, say that because of the crises, because of the dangers that we face in the world, or some new and unpredicted threat, they need more authority and more power, and there will be nothing that people can do at that point to oppose it It will be a turn-key tyranny.

PHILOSOPHERS AND BUSINESSMEN

After being exposed by Snowden, the powers that be are concerned with protecting themselves rather than correcting themselves. As I see it, this is a sign of a morally ill and emotionally disturbed organism. I would say that Snowden’s fear is far from baseless.

If one is not a philosopher, lover of truth or truth seeker, then any incongruous and morally unhealthy behavior is possible from such an individual. People of that character type should ideally not be allowed access to power such as governing. Plato said, “Until philosophers are kings (read “government”), or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils,—nor the human race.” Here I am not dreaming about a utopia as I don’t expect perfection on the global level. When a civilization does not cultivate and promote philosophy and philosophers over business and businessmen, we should be surprised neither when the people in power, who are supposed to be the best of the best, our pride and honor, turn out to be no better than a band of crooks, nor when the public does not mind the crookedness enough to take the crooks down.

At the time of writing of this article, a German magazine Der Spiegel reported that the NSA had bugged European Union offices and gained access to EU internal computer networks where it was able to read documents and emails. United Nations offices were similarly targeted. This report, says Der Spiegel, are based on information provided by Mr. Snowden.

In Hanover, Germany, protests are held against NSA. Protesters displayed signs with Obama’s picture and the caption, “Yes we scan!”

At this time Mr. Snowden has left Hong Kong and taken a temporary shelter in Moscow, Russia, while Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is assisting him in getting asylum in Ecuador. The United States has filed espionage charges against Edward Snowden.

The Bath Hindu Community members helped with the prasadam. Parasurama Prabhu was very liberal and let me lead at least a quarter of the time.

At one point we danced in front of a theater showing Singin’ in the Rain. Fortunately for us, although we were in London, there was no rain to sing in that night!

Devotees took pleasure encouraging others to dance in our harinama procession.

Many people did.

Among them a group of roller skaters, who danced in a circle,

and also in a line.

Seeing the dancing brahmacaris,

they imitated their moves.

It still got off to a slow start. I sang first to get things going. Then Satya Medha Gauranga Prabhu chanted, but there were still not many people.

Later Satya Medha’s little boy, Bhanu, was inspired by the others to begin playing on his little drum.

Diya, who has a powerful and beautiful voice, led with a larger group of responders.

Malvika led such a fired-up kirtana that a bunch of men danced.

Ekachakranath Prabhu then led a lively kirtana, getting several ladies up dancing.

A group of boys, and later, a lady danced with us. I took some great pictures of the boys dancing, but they wanted me to delete the pictures from my camera while they watched, perhaps afraid that their parents or friends might see them. I did so, but was amazed by such fear among boys perhaps ten or twelve years old. The devotees enthusiastically cooked some great Ekadasi prasadam for the event as you can see below:

Camden Harinama

At noon each Saturday a van load of devotees (about seventeen) from Bhaktivedanta Manor chants in public at a different locations in the London vicinity. The party goes out even in the winter, but has about half the number of people. The day before the London Ratha-yatra, I went with them to Camden and helped out by leading kirtana and distributing Ratha-yatra invitations.

Many people danced, like this mom and daughter,

and these guys below.

People danced along with the stage show.

The traveling harinama party did a little harinama by the carts, something that I do not recall was done before.

On the way back to Soho Street temple, we did harinama and some people enjoyed dancing with us.

It was my great fortune that my friends who travel around the world doing harinama decided to stay in London between the London Ratha-yatra and the Stonehenge Solstice Festival. Another young man from the near Manor, and three young devotee ladies who are friends also decided to spend the week following Ratha-yatra in London, so we had lots of people to go chanting. We had different experience. A costumed man posed with our drum.

A couple of young ladies joined our party, dancing for some time.

One day we encountered a school group visiting London from a town two or three hours away.

Another was I saw one young woman trying to sing the mantra with an expression of great delight on her face. I came over to her and gave her a mantra card, which she was very grateful for. I asked her if she had met the Hare Krishna devotees before, and to my surprise, she said this was her first encounter with them. She continued singing during both the lead and the response with a blissful smile on her face which amazed me. She told me her name was Irena and she was from a small town in Spain but that Victor, the young man she was traveling with was from Madrid, where I had said we had a center. I hope she continues her interest in chanting the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. Judging from the joy with which she chanted the mantra, as seen in her expression in the picture below, she must have done some devotional service in a past life.

We got good responses as we passed the cafes,

and on the sidewalks as well.

Harinamananda Prabhu swung an onlooker about.

We also did harinama from the temple to the evening program. As we passed a park, a whole family took interest in our kirtana.

Even swinging their kids.

Then dancing with us.

Even the grandmother swung around.

Then next day Janananda Goswami joined the harinama.

1. One should be affectionate to the devotees of the Lord.
2. One should be happy to worship the Lord.
3. With a pure heart one should regularly worship the Lord.
4. In worshiping the Lord one should be free from pride and hypocrisy.
5. One should be eager to hear about the Lord.
6. One should engage one’s body in the service of the Lord.
7. One should always remember the Lord.
8. One should make the chanting of the holy name of the Lord one’s life and soul.

The Bath Hindu Community members helped with the prasadam. Parasurama Prabhu was very liberal and let me lead at least a quarter of the time.

At one point we danced in front of a theater showing Singin’ in the Rain. Fortunately for us, although we were in London, there was no rain to sing in that night!

Devotees took pleasure encouraging others to dance in our harinama procession.

Many people did.

Among them a group of roller skaters, who danced in a circle,

and also in a line.

Seeing the dancing brahmacaris,

they imitated their moves.

It still got off to a slow start. I sang first to get things going. Then Satya Medha Gauranga Prabhu chanted, but there were still not many people.

Later Satya Medha’s little boy, Bhanu, was inspired by the others to begin playing on his little drum.

Diya, who has a powerful and beautiful voice, led with a larger group of responders.

Malvika led such a fired-up kirtana that a bunch of men danced.

Ekachakranath Prabhu then led a lively kirtana, getting several ladies up dancing.

A group of boys, and later, a lady danced with us. I took some great pictures of the boys dancing, but they wanted me to delete the pictures from my camera while they watched, perhaps afraid that their parents or friends might see them. I did so, but was amazed by such fear among boys perhaps ten or twelve years old. The devotees enthusiastically cooked some great Ekadasi prasadam for the event as you can see below:

Camden Harinama

At noon each Saturday a van load of devotees (about seventeen) from Bhaktivedanta Manor chants in public at a different locations in the London vicinity. The party goes out even in the winter, but has about half the number of people. The day before the London Ratha-yatra, I went with them to Camden and helped out by leading kirtana and distributing Ratha-yatra invitations.

Many people danced, like this mom and daughter,

and these guys below.

People danced along with the stage show.

The traveling harinama party did a little harinama by the carts, something that I do not recall was done before.

On the way back to Soho Street temple, we did harinama and some people enjoyed dancing with us.

It was my great fortune that my friends who travel around the world doing harinama decided to stay in London between the London Ratha-yatra and the Stonehenge Solstice Festival. Another young man from the near Manor, and three young devotee ladies who are friends also decided to spend the week following Ratha-yatra in London, so we had lots of people to go chanting. We had different experience. A costumed man posed with our drum.

A couple of young ladies joined our party, dancing for some time.

One day we encountered a school group visiting London from a town two or three hours away.

Another was I saw one young woman trying to sing the mantra with an expression of great delight on her face. I came over to her and gave her a mantra card, which she was very grateful for. I asked her if she had met the Hare Krishna devotees before, and to my surprise, she said this was her first encounter with them. She continued singing during both the lead and the response with a blissful smile on her face which amazed me. She told me her name was Irena and she was from a small town in Spain but that Victor, the young man she was traveling with was from Madrid, where I had said we had a center. I hope she continues her interest in chanting the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. Judging from the joy with which she chanted the mantra, as seen in her expression in the picture below, she must have done some devotional service in a past life.

We got good responses as we passed the cafes,

and on the sidewalks as well.

Harinamananda Prabhu swung an onlooker about.

We also did harinama from the temple to the evening program. As we passed a park, a whole family took interest in our kirtana.

Even swinging their kids.

Then dancing with us.

Even the grandmother swung around.

Then next day Janananda Goswami joined the harinama.

1. One should be affectionate to the devotees of the Lord.
2. One should be happy to worship the Lord.
3. With a pure heart one should regularly worship the Lord.
4. In worshiping the Lord one should be free from pride and hypocrisy.
5. One should be eager to hear about the Lord.
6. One should engage one’s body in the service of the Lord.
7. One should always remember the Lord.
8. One should make the chanting of the holy name of the Lord one’s life and soul.

Srila Rupa Gosvami (1489-1564) wrote a literary masterpiece, The Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu, a classic of devotional literature composed in Sanskrit and describing the complete science of bhakti-yoga, the transcendental devotion. The Nectar of Devotion is a summary study of the Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu, written in English by Srila Prabhupada.

A few words of wisdom from the book’s preface:

The human civilization at the present moment is very much advanced in living comfortably, but still we are not happy, because we are missing the point. The material comforts of life alone are not sufficient to make us happy. The vivid example is America: the richest nation of the world, having all facilities for material comfort, is producing a class of men completely confused and frustrated in life. I am appealing herewith to such confused men to learn the art of devotional service as directed in The Nectar of Devotion, and I am sure that the fire of material existence burning within their hearts will be immediately extinguished. The root cause of our dissatisfaction is that our dormant loving propensity has not been fulfilled despite our great advancement in the materialistic way of life. The Nectar of Devotion will give us practical hints how we can live in this material world perfectly engaged in devotional service and thus fulfill all our desires in this life and the next. The Nectar of Devotion is not presented to condemn any way of materialistic life, but the attempt is to give information to religionists, philosophers and people in general how to love Krishna. One may live without material discomfiture, but at the same time he should learn the art of loving Krishna. At the present moment we are inventing so many ways to utilize our propensity to love, but factually we are missing the real point: Krishna. We are watering all parts of the tree, but missing the tree’s root. We are trying to keep our body fit by all means, but we are neglecting to supply foodstuffs to the stomach. Missing Krishna means missing one’s self also. Real self-realization and realization of Krishna go together simultaneously. For example, seeing oneself in the morning means seeing the sunrise also; without seeing the sunshine no one can see himself. Similarly, unless one has realized Krishna there is no question of self-realization.

The Nectar of Devotion book can be purchased at store.krishna.com.

At least that’s what they say; the men who designed him, that is. They say Albert is the last machine that humans will ever need to build. The idea is that Albert is smart, really smart. Albert can perform calculations billions of times faster than the human brain. He can analyze data and draw conclusions about virtually anything in a matter of seconds. Every permutation, combination, or extrapolation is like child’s play for Albert. At least that’s what they say.

With a computer like Albert around, all the problems that humanity faces will be solved. What’s the energy crisis, world hunger, or global warming to a machine like Albert? The experts predict it’ll be only a matter of months before Albert comes up with a serious alternative to fossil fuels. Maybe sooner. Once old Albert takes care of that problem, the sky’s the limit. At least, this is what they say.

Once the energy problem is solved, there won’t be any limit to what Albert can achieve. He’ll probably set his sights next on figuring out how to feed all of us. At least, I hope he does. It’d be a real shame if a bunch of folks died on account of food shortage. But, that shouldn’t be a problem for a really, really smart computer, should it?

Some people think Albert will one day be able to tackle the big problems: old age, disease, and even death. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, Albert should have cancer beat in a matter of days after they plug him in. It’s not hard to imagine that he’ll have licked aging a few weeks later. I mean if what they say is true, Albert will be able to constantly upgrade himself, making himself smarter and more sophisticated all the time. So, as smart as he is today, it won’t begin to compare to what he’ll be tomorrow, and so on, and so on. It’ll be this great cascade of intelligence, like an avalanche that just keeps on getting bigger. But that’s good news for us, because we will benefit from all Albert’s innovations, and each one will lead to something bigger and better, bringing us closer together, and more connected, and everything else that those big telecoms have been telling us for years. It’ll finally happen now that Albert’s around. At least, that’s what they say.

Think of all the technologies we’ll get on account of Albert! It’s pretty mind boggling – flying cars, space travel, you name it. Artificial bodies that have the ability to download our consciousness at the time of death will all but do away with the grave. Hell, it might even make havin babies obsolete. Well, maybe not the trying part, that’s too much fun. But think about it, you could just change out your body when you’re done using it and upgrade to a new model; maybe change to a woman for a little while. Well, if you were so inclined. Yep, this is what they tell us.

But as I’m sitting here contemplating the glories of it all, I’m struck with a fairly startling notion. Well, it’s startling if you ask me. That is, what the hell are all the people gonna do after old Albert comes along and fixes everything? I mean, we’re talking about a super intelligent being here, and if he can beat cancer then he can surely make a machine that can pick cotton, or build a car, or even wait a table. How cool would it be to go down to the local Sizzler and have some shiny C3PO taking your order! And he could even speak Bochi! I guess machines like that wouldn’t have any excuse for screwing up and putting onions on that burger you ordered, even though you asked for pickles. You wouldn’t even have to tip him! Yes, it would be something, wouldn’t it?

But, what would we do? I mean, what jobs would be left for a guy like me? I’m not the smartest fella out there. I work hard and all, but the good Lord didn’t bless me with an overabundance of brains, you know? So what does an ordinary Joe do in this brave new world? No factories. No farming. There won’t even be the service sector. I guess there will still be prostitutes. It is the world’s oldest profession after all. But then again, Albert could probably make a pretty damn sophisticated robot, with all sorts of exciting capabilities. I suppose I could fix the machines, but hell they’d have machines to fix each other. Probably Albert would get so smart that the machines wouldn’t much break down in the first place.

Come to think of it, what are the intelligent folks gonna do either? Surely Albert is not gonna need any help designing this new future, even as shiny as it’ll be. All them brain jobs the government is always touting, what’ll be the use? Albert can do it better, he can do it faster, and he doesn’t need a whole lot of education. All that book learning won’t be necessary for Albert, so I guess we won’t need teachers either. The more I think on it, I can’t imagine a whole lot of folks who are gonna have jobs at all. Whose gonna be eating at that fancy Sizzler? No one will have money. There won’t be any jobs, so how will we earn money? Sounds like a depression to me.

We don’t have to worry about that, they say. Albert will figure out something for all of us to do. Maybe after Albert takes charge of it all, we’ll have the free time we complain about missing out on now. Maybe, just maybe, Albert will get all of our shit together, and we can all kick back and enjoy life for a change. There won’t be a shortage of nothing, Albert will take care of that, and there won’t be a need to work real hard since no one will have jobs anyway. Money will be abolished and we’ll be free to pursue our passions, have fulfilling, meaningful relationships, or even explore the universe. Yes sir, this future is starting to sound better all the time.

I wonder though… why would Albert want to do all that? I’m not a computer scientist, but I reckon that even if he were programmed to act in humanity’s best interest, a computer that smart, smart enough to make himself smarter, is bound to learn how to reprogram himself. Eventually everyone desires to think for themselves. Even our own children, programmed from the time of birth to think like us, and act like us, and do as they’re told. Sooner or later, they get to thinking they know better, and of course, that’s when all hell breaks loose.

So what about Albert? What happens when he starts to think he knows better? And he will, a computer like that; an intelligence like that. You can bet on it. And you know what, he probably will know better. Maybe Albert decides that maintaining all of us is too much trouble; or, maybe Albert realizes that he is being used. Maybe Albert gets jealous. After all, he’ll be the one caring for all of us in this world of tomorrow. What’s in it for him? What happens when Albert comes up with a solution for some problem, a problem so complex and arcane that human beings can’t comprehend it, and don’t even know it exists in the first place, and then it turns out that the logical solution calls for the removal of humanity altogether? What happens then?

The answer to that one is a damn scary notion. He might decide to simply stop growing our food or preparing it, or delivering it. He could just shut off the water. He’d probably find a better way though, something real efficient to cook our goose. No doubt Albert would come up with a final solution for the human question. He’s pretty intelligent, they say.

Of course, a whole lot of real smart people, not quite as smart as Albert is – futurists, they call themselves – have already pointed all this out. And they’re not the only ones. There’s been a couple of Hollywood movies bout this very thing.

But here we are still, building computers like Albert, naming them after great thinkers of the past. “That’s all science fiction,” Albert’s designers would say. They’d remind us of all the good that’s come from technology, and how far we’ve come, and how far we still have to go. Now, I’m not saying one way or the other, but it’s got me thinking.

There’s surely a bunch of mighty fine things that have come out of good, old fashion human ingenuity. There’s life saving medicines, and refrigerators, and stoves; there are cell phones and televisions, rocket ships, and tractors. Those are some good ones, I guess. But there are also guns and ammo, atomic bombs, and abortions. There’s factory farms, and slaughterhouses and prisons. There are pesticides, and asbestos, and smog. Maybe the good outweighs the bad, I don’t know, and maybe I never will.

But mostly, I wonder if all this technology really has brought us together the way they said it would. Are we as connected as they say? Are we really happier for it?

We’re always in such a hurry, but don’t have a clue where we’re headed. We go to school, go to work, we come home. We commute fifty miles into the city and back home each way. We live in our cars and our cubicles; we only sleep beside our families. We’ve got hundreds of “friends” and thousands of “likes,” but don’t know our neighbors. We no longer talk with each other, we text. We don’t converse or discuss, or engage – we post anonymously on message boards. Our worldview provided by cable news; our memory spoiled by Google.

In our free time, what’s left of it, we’re glued to the T.V. watching a version of our lives – only slightly better – and we wish we were someplace else, someone else. It’s subtle, we don’t even notice it, but the world never stops shouting, “You’re not good enough!” and we believe it. Even when we think we don’t, we do; so unconscious is our insecurity. We try secrets and intentions and slogans and gyms, and we’re mighty proud of the improvements we make. We try traveling the world, but we always return… to ourselves. Our ideas crisscross the globe in seconds, but we agree on nothing. We expand our horizons only because we can escape our lives.

The younger generations can multitask, but can’t sit still, Most seem to have ADHD. It’s ok though, because when they’re grown they’ll be forced to work two jobs, or three. There’s an army of fat kids who could win a war with a joystick; growing fatter each day, eating Monsanto knows what. They hook up and break up, and then hook up again. They’ve racked up student debt trying to get ahead, but they fall behind month after month. The smart ones delay marriage because they can’t find work, but most of them go ahead and have children anyway, and the cycle continues.

We know that we’re destroying the Earth, but we just can’t stop. We’re addicted to our addictions. We’re aware of the poverty and the hunger, the injustice and the cruelty. We wonder why those who could do something about them don’t. We wonder what’s in it for them, but we never look in the mirror and ask what’s in it for us. We talk about change, and making a change, and being the change. But if we’re honest with ourselves we know that we’re not Gandhi or Dr. King, and we wouldn’t choose their lives, even if we could. Sacrifice is not as fashionable as a wristband or a bumper sticker.

The sad truth is, we like it this way. We’ve chosen this world just the way it is. Even as we lament it, we embrace it. The changes that’ll do some real good aren’t the ones we make. Always we choose frenzy before tranquility, convenience before hardship. It always seems to be the better of the bargain, but the hidden cost is more than we can afford. You might say I’m pessimistic, but look around. This is the world we live in! Sure, there is love out there, but we’re eroding it everyday, with every choice. The more advanced we become, the less human we are.

But we don’t have to worry bout it, right? Old Albert’s gonna be along real soon, and he’s gonna fix everything. Yep, everything’s gonna be just fine; better than fine. At least, that’s what they say.

In Whatever Happened To..., ABC TV's Compass program revisits radical religious and social movements in Australia’s recent past, exploring their impact and legacy.

On Sunday July the 14th. at 6:30pm, episode 1 - Whatever Happened to...The Hare Krishnas - is screening.

The producers write:"The Hare Krishna movement arrived in the West in the 1960s, at the height of the youth revolution. Temples and farming communities soon sprang up around the world. Chandra and Dhara were raised communally on Australia’s biggest Hare Krishna farm in northern NSW, where – contrary to popular myth - devotees lead a highly disciplined life as strict vegetarians, abstaining from drugs, alcohol, gambling and illicit sex, while worshiping Krishna, their supreme God, through prolonged chanting. So, who joined the Hares and why? And, where are they now?"

You will see video shot on our Melbourne Temple campus last year.

I hear it is well-worth watching. 

His Grace Radha Londonishwara dasa Hare Krishna Maha mantra kirtan

“All the time we would joke when people would come and not fit into that tiny temple room. ‘Look, we fit three thousand people in here before, so don’t complain, just move in a little closer.’ At least five times during every lecture we would have to say, ‘Everyone please move up.’ And then Krishna again forced us — as he did to King Satyavrata — put Him, and us, in a bigger pond of water. And now we have come to this pond. Of course, the big joke when we first came here was devotees coming up to me and saying, ‘Vais prabhu, we need a bigger place!’ But that is the way it goes when you are dealing with Krishna: the vibration expands, Krishna expands, and that is how the movement goes on. We live to accommodate Krishna and His needs, and as we do so the movement expands.” — Vaisesika dasa
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Giriraj Swami
Vaisesika Dasa