Czech summer camp 2013
→ KKS Blog

During InitiationFinally, we are back to reporting on Kadamba Kanana Swami’s travels. I was not with Maharaja for over three weeks, and Markandeya Dasa (Amsterdam) travelled with him through Slovenia, England, Germany and Croatia. Markandeya will be sending us pictures and other media, and as soon as we get it, we will share it with you. For now, we will catch up with the latest of Maharaja’s travels.

I rejoined Maharaja in the Czech Republic (20 June). Every year, Maharaja attends the “tabor”, the summer camp, which gathers the whole Czech yatra at a holiday village near the city of Brno, which is also located close to the Slovakian border hence many devotees from Slovakia joined in as well. Furthermore, the camp was blessed with the presence of Bhakti Vaibhava Swami, Dhanavir Goswami and Navina Nirada Prabhu.

Kadamba Kanana Swami gave several lectures – two Bhagavatam classes and a seminar. Although the title of the latter was The six Goswamis, the focus fell more on Krsnadas Kaviraja Goswami and his taking shelter of the lotus feet of Sri Sri Radha Madhana-mohan in order to be able to write about Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s pastimes. On Sunday (23 June), Maharaja, together with Dhanavir Goswami, held an initiation ceremony outdoors, where Kadamba Kanana Swami initiated one disciple from the Prague temple, blessing him with the name Balarama Dasa! For the rest of the summer camp, it was kirtan, kirtan and kirtan! Bhakti Vaibhava Maharaja changed this year’s schedule to build in daily evening bhajans. While he delighted the devotees with Aindra melodies, Kadamba Kanana Maharaja forced them into dancing wildly to rocking KKS-tunes.

Below, you can find the links to these classes and kirtans, as well as a slide-show depicting the summer camp. To download audio files, just right-click on a title and ‘save target as’. In case you cannot view the slide-show, then please visit flickr.

 

Lectures

KKS – Seminar – 6 Goswamis – Czech Summer Camp – 22 June 2013

KKS – Initiation Lecture – Czech Summer Camp – 23 June 2013

KKS – SB. 8.2.33 – Czech Summer Camp – 24 June 2013

KKS – SB. 8.3.1 – Czech Summer Camp – 25 June 2013

 

Kirtans

KKS – Kirtana I – Czech Summer Camp – 21 June 2013

KKS – Kirtana II – Czech Summer Camp – 21 June 2013

KKS – Kirtana III – Czech Summer Camp – 22 June 2013

 

Pictures

Lecture – BG 9.22 What Are We Prepared To Do For Krishna? – Video
→ Prahladananda Swami

Bhagavad-gita 9.22 by HH Prahladananda Swami (Health Resort Vita Mores, Saint Vlas, Bulgaria, July 21, 2012). from Lilasuka Das on Vimeo.

Our ability to understand spiritual life depends on our engagement in Lord Caitanya’s Sankirtan Movement. Very nice question & answer session in the audio not available on video.

BG 09.22 What Are We Prepared To Do For Krishna? 2012

Lecture – SB 1.4.3 Lost In The Philosophy, Lost In The Story – Video
→ Prahladananda Swami

Srimad Bhagavatam 1.4.3 by His Holiness Prahladananda Swami, 21 July, 2012, Health Resort Vita Mores Saint Vlas. from Lilasuka Das on Vimeo.

Srila Prabhupada Never Really Left Us.
When Mickey and Mini Fail, What to Do?
What When All the World Became Ritviks?

World domination with Mickey Mouse and Coca-Cola

SB 01.04.03 Lost In The Philosophy, Lost In The Story 2012-07-21

Initiation Lecture Sudama & Loka Guru Das – Bulgarian Camp – Video
→ Prahladananda Swami

Initiation Ceremony at Health Resort Mores Vita, Saint Vlas, Bulgaria on the 18th of July, 2012 – PART 2 from Lilasuka Das on Vimeo.

Initiation Lecture Sudama & Loka Guru Das – Bulgarian Camp 2012-07-18

Initiation Ceremony at Health Resort Mores Vita, Saint Vlas, Bulgaria on the 18th of July, 2012 – PART 2

Initiating Guru: His Holiness Prahladananda Swami

Initiates: Sudama Das (Bhakta Slavi) and Loka-guru Das (Bhakta Lenk0 (book distribution, history)

I Have No Time To Chant
→ Japa Group

I was reading an interesting article today....it talks about how we should organise our time around our Japa and not organise our Japa around the time that we have left in the day. Here is a quote from the article:

I Have No Time to Chant

Most of us who are raising families are challenged to find two undisturbed hours a day to solely focus on our rounds. Yet many of the activities that take our time away from chanting are activities that we specifically have chosen to do. Afer the second retreat I thought that the reason I have so much on my plate that takes me away from chanting is simply because I don't like chanting enough. It's what Prabhupada calls the "self created burden." If I am finding it difficult to finish my rounds because of a lack of time, I am ultimately the one who chose to do all the activities that are getting in the way of my chanting. Even when I can't really avoid all the work and responsibilities, still I am the one who is organizing those activities in a way that chanting often takes a back seat to the other things I do.

http://www.harekrsna.de/artikel/japa-chanting.htm

I Have No Time To Chant
→ Japa Group

I was reading an interesting article today....it talks about how we should organise our time around our Japa and not organise our Japa around the time that we have left in the day. Here is a quote from the article:

I Have No Time to Chant

Most of us who are raising families are challenged to find two undisturbed hours a day to solely focus on our rounds. Yet many of the activities that take our time away from chanting are activities that we specifically have chosen to do. Afer the second retreat I thought that the reason I have so much on my plate that takes me away from chanting is simply because I don't like chanting enough. It's what Prabhupada calls the "self created burden." If I am finding it difficult to finish my rounds because of a lack of time, I am ultimately the one who chose to do all the activities that are getting in the way of my chanting. Even when I can't really avoid all the work and responsibilities, still I am the one who is organizing those activities in a way that chanting often takes a back seat to the other things I do.

http://www.harekrsna.de/artikel/japa-chanting.htm

burning like fire
→ everyday gita

Verse 3.39: Thus the wise living entity's pure consciousness becomes covered by his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and which burns like fire.

Very often readers of the Gita pose this question: "If I'm an eternal soul which is always blissful and full of knowledge, then why don't I experience those qualities?" It's a great question and one which is answered here today-

When the pure consciousness of the soul is covered by lust, the soul forgets who it really is.

This lust is what causes us to feel empty and lonely. As a quick reminder, lust is the negative transformation of love and compels the covered soul to seek enjoyment in all that is temporary. That search for pleasure outside of ourselves in temporary material things is what often leads to great frustration.

Makes sense if you think about it. If we are eternal, then how can we be satisfied by impermanence? It just doesn't work.

The thing is, although the soul has forgotten its eternality, its inherent pleasure seeking characteristic still remains. That's we continue to try to seek eternal happiness despite all our failures. In fact, it is this lust which continues to burn within us and fuels our desire to keep trying to find that pleasure - just in all the wrong places!

That's where the Gita provides the solution. The Gita doesn't promote that we just ignore our inherent nature to desire pleasure. Instead, it teaches us how to transform our lust into its original state of love. Specifically, it teaches us:

We're searching for pleasure in the wrong places.

See the difference? The search still remains...it's just that it becomes transformed. Instead of seeking pleasure in the temporary, material world, instead we are directed to seek pleasure in that which is eternal - our relationship with the Supreme.

It is this relationship which will revive our pure consciousness and which will transform all the lust in our heart to pure love.

burning like fire
→ everyday gita

Verse 3.39: Thus the wise living entity's pure consciousness becomes covered by his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and which burns like fire.

Very often readers of the Gita pose this question: "If I'm an eternal soul which is always blissful and full of knowledge, then why don't I experience those qualities?" It's a great question and one which is answered here today-

When the pure consciousness of the soul is covered by lust, the soul forgets who it really is.

This lust is what causes us to feel empty and lonely. As a quick reminder, lust is the negative transformation of love and compels the covered soul to seek enjoyment in all that is temporary. That search for pleasure outside of ourselves in temporary material things is what often leads to great frustration.

Makes sense if you think about it. If we are eternal, then how can we be satisfied by impermanence? It just doesn't work.

The thing is, although the soul has forgotten its eternality, its inherent pleasure seeking characteristic still remains. That's we continue to try to seek eternal happiness despite all our failures. In fact, it is this lust which continues to burn within us and fuels our desire to keep trying to find that pleasure - just in all the wrong places!

That's where the Gita provides the solution. The Gita doesn't promote that we just ignore our inherent nature to desire pleasure. Instead, it teaches us how to transform our lust into its original state of love. Specifically, it teaches us:

We're searching for pleasure in the wrong places.

See the difference? The search still remains...it's just that it becomes transformed. Instead of seeking pleasure in the temporary, material world, instead we are directed to seek pleasure in that which is eternal - our relationship with the Supreme.

It is this relationship which will revive our pure consciousness and which will transform all the lust in our heart to pure love.

Liquid Beauty
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Liquid Beauty

Never Mind the Vomit

The “Liquid Beauty” photocomic is loosely based on this story.

Once a man who was very powerful and strongly built, but whose character was questionable, felt attraction for a beautiful girl. This girl had great philosophical insight and was thus aware that she was actually the nonphysical conscious self, which is inherently different from the physical body. Therefore she did not like the man’s advances. The man, however, was insistent because of his lusty desires, and therefore the girl requested him to wait only seven days, and she set a time after that when he could meet her. The man agreed and with high expectations began waiting for the appointed time. The girl, however, adopted a method to instruct him about the actual nature of the physical body. She took strong doses of laxatives and purgatives and for seven days continually passed loose stool and vomited all that she ate. Moreover, she stored all the loose stool and vomit in suitable pots. As a result of the purgatives, the so-called beautiful girl became lean and thin like a skeleton, her complexion turned blackish, and her beautiful eyes sank into the sockets of her skull.

Thus, at the appointed hour she waited to receive the eager man. The man appeared on the scene well dressed and well behaved and asked the ugly girl he found waiting there about the beautiful girl he was to meet. The man could not recognize the girl he saw as the same beautiful girl for whom he was asking; indeed, although she repeatedly asserted her identity, because of her pitiable condition he was unable to recognize her. At last the girl told the powerful man that she had separated the ingredients of her beauty and stored them in pots. She also told him that he could enjoy those juices of beauty. When the mundane poetic man asked to see the juices of beauty, he was directed to the store of loose stool and liquid vomit, which were emanating bad smell. Thus the whole story of the beauty liquid was disclosed to him. Finally, this man of low character was able to distinguish between the shadow and the substance.

This man’s position is similar to that of every one of us who are attracted by false, material beauty. The girl mentioned above had a beautiful physical body, but in fact she was apart from that temporary body. She was in fact a spiritual spark, and so also was the lover who was attracted by her false skin. Mundane intellectuals and aesthetics, however, are deluded by the outward beauty and attraction of the relative truth and are unaware of the spiritual spark, which is both truth and beauty at the same time. The spiritual spark is so beautiful that when it leaves the so-called beautiful physical body, which is filled with stool and vomit, no one wants to touch that body, even if it is decorated with a costly dress. Many are pursuing a false, relative truth, which is incompatible with real beauty. The actual truth, however, is permanently beautiful, retaining the same standard of beauty for innumerable years. That spiritual spark, which is who we actually are, is indestructible. The beauty of the outer skin can be destroyed in only a few hours merely by a dose of a strong purgative, but the beauty of truth is indestructible and always the same.

Consciousness In a Simulated World
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asimo

Living in our high-tech world, it seems today almost anything is possible. We are creating not only the new and improved, but are becoming exceptionally good at mimicking life itself. Many are familiar with our new digital friend “Siri,” and other similar examples of technology known as “artificial intelligence.”

However, I, like others, quickly found out the human-like “intelligence” of “Siri” is not at all the “intelligence” we’d like her to be. She is a nice gimmick at best. Users start to notice her limitations, once the seemingly witty remarks become noticeably redundant as she provides her often irrelevant pre-programmed answers. How many times did you shout “Dammit Siri!” as she again directed you to an old abandoned warehouse, instead of a supposedly existing gas station? Perhaps AI (artificial intelligence) is not what it is all cracked up to be. But, perhaps we haven’t yet seen its full potential?

THE WORLD’S MOST ADVANCED

Meet ASIMO, the world’s most advanced humanoid robot. Initially introduced way back in October of 2000 by Honda, ASIMO is a robot designed to be a multi-functional mobile assistant. ASIMO was designed with very advanced recognition technology, giving the robot the ability to move objects, exhibit various postures and gestures, and be aware of the surrounding environment. ASIMO can even recognize faces, even when ASIMO or the human being is moving. It can individually recognize approximately ten different faces. Once they are registered, it can address them by name and distinguish them by sound.

Many people at the exhibition are astounded upon first seeing a robot of this caliber. Many of the typical responses included things like:

“ASIMO’s capability is truly outstanding!” said one.

“Wow, it looked like someone was actually inside that thing,” said another.

One participant even stated, “I feel an emotional connection; I feel a kinship with Asimo and could easily see how a person could get attached.”

Many people there also stated that they felt a great sense of human accomplishment, in addition to the astonishment, and are happy that we, as a civilization, could create such a “life-like” piece of technology.

Is the simulated world itself conscious without the conscious actor using the interface technology?

Is the simulated world itself conscious without the conscious actor using the interface technology?

While ASIMO and others are already being prepared as personal assistants for home and commercial markets, many are asking a more philosophical question, which also happens to be the biggest question regarding AI. Will we ever be able to create a computer that will be truly conscious and self-aware?

HUMAN BRAIN: ANOTHER COMPUTER?

Since the rapid technological development of the 1980’s, many things are now possible. But, the question remains, can you have consciousness in a simulated program?

one participant even stated, "I feel an emotional connection, I feel a kinship with Asimo.."

one participant even stated, “I feel an emotional connection, I feel a kinship with Asimo..”

Actually, the same question comes up in the real world. In the real world you have molecules and different constituents of matter sitting together in different relationships. Many AI proponents argue that if you capture the different relationships that go into the brain, the process of thought occurring in the physical structure in the body, you capture the very essence of thoughts and self-cognizance, and can then produce a simulated conscious actor.

Is computer-simulated consciousness truly ‘alive’?

If you could capture inter-relationships and duplicate them in a computer, would the resulting model be self-aware? Right now I am writing and have a conscious perception of what is going on. You can imagine a robot speaking as I am, but there would be no actual consciousness, it would merely be a structure going through the programmed motions. Just because a computer program is simulating all the behaviors of a living conscious actor, it still is not enough to give the computer self-cognizance.

John Searle is an American philosopher and currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. Among his notable concepts is the “Chinese room” argument against ”strong” artificial intelligence. Searle states: “Just because a computer program simulates all the different relationships that go into conscious thought that doesn’t mean it will be conscious like you or I.”

The Chinese Room argument
The Chinese Room argument, devised by John Searle, is an argument against the possibility of true artificial intelligence. The argument centers on a thought experiment in which someone who knows only English sits alone in a room following English instructions for manipulating strings of Chinese characters, such that to those outside the room it appears as if someone in the room understands Chinese. The argument is intended to show that while suitably programmed computers may appear to converse in natural language, they are not capable of understanding language, even in principle. Searle argues that the thought experiment underscores the fact that computers merely use syntactic rules to manipulate symbol strings, but have no understanding of meaning or semantics. Searle’s argument is a direct challenge to proponents of Artificial Intelligence, and the argument also has broad implications for functionalist and computational theories of meaning and of mind.

Because it is merely a program that is being executed, there is no actual conscious awareness on the computer’s part. But when it comes to studying the human brain, bio-chemists may argue that consciousness exists in the brain because of the presence of basic brain molecules, and that when you have specific combination of polypeptides in the brain, that combination will generate the conscious experience. And if you ask a bio-chemist, “What is it about these polypeptides that generate consciousness?” He will likely say that it is the structure and the relationship of its molecular components.

HOW REAL CONSCIOUSNESS WORKS WITHIN UN-REALITY

So, what you have in the human brain is a relationship between molecules, just as you have the relationship of electrical currents following the pattern of a computer program!

Other than sophistication, what is the real difference? There is none actually.

If the brain is merely a hyper-complex machine, then by the same logic, we must question as to when and where consciousness actually arises in the machine of the brain. Does this mean our personality is nothing more than an evolved computer simulation? It may be that modern computer science has handed us the answer to this question.

We have already seen a similar instance where a real conscious actor is existing and acting within a simulated program. It is known to those in the computer world as “virtual reality.” In a virtual reality environment there is consciousness because there is an actual human being who is experiencing the simulated world through the medium of a virtual reality interface, which in this case would be the hardware interface, i.e. the head gear and gloves that hook up to the computer to allow the participant to interact with the virtual world.

Although there is sentience within virtual reality because of the human participant, is the simulated world itself conscious without the conscious actor using the interface technology? The obvious answer would be no. The simulated world is only a show of movement as long as there is a real user present. Similarly, if our brain and body is merely another machine, then could it be that we are non-material conscious actors experiencing a simulated world through a more sophisticated type of virtual reality hook up, such as the human body and brain?

“The Prime Living Entity is situated in everyone’s heart and is directing the wanderings of all living entities, who are seated as on a machine, made of the material energy [the human body]” Bhagavad-gita 18.61.

In a virtual reality simulation, the participants are all linked in the simulated world with a technological sensory interface. In the ancient Indian Sanskrit texts, Vedic science informs us that in real life we are conscious, non-physical entities; yet, we are linked to this world through an external sensory interface of the subtle intellect, mind, and gross physical senses. In this way many parallels can be made with sankhya-yoga, a classic philosophical system of India.

In Sankhya yoga texts, this world is described as the world of maya or the “illusory” world. It is here that the “atma” or non-physical spirit soul accepts a material body, mind, and senses and partakes in a simulated identity in a continual evolution of life and death. In this way the soul is reincarnated through a variety of different species of life, each new life being a kind of simulated or virtual reality.

A computer simulated consciousness is in the realm of this maya, this illusory exhibition of consciousness arising solely from mechanical events. Although there is no conscious entity in a computer or robot, it seems that the robot is real and living, because of the apparent operation and behavior of the computer. In the same way, it only appears that the body is itself alive, with the chemicals in the brain enacting the conscious experience. Rather, the body is merely an instrument for an incorporeal, transcendental entity.

This is the beginning of all the spiritual understanding that has been discussed in the Vedic literature in the land of India and civilizations abroad for thousands of years; we are not our physical bodies, but rather spirit souls using bodies as temporary vehicles.

It may be that computer science is giving us clues to understand our reality and the true nature of consciousness, which has already been described so nicely in the advanced Sanskrit records of human wisdom. There is a real want for this scientific spiritual knowledge today, and the Bhagavad-gita and Srimad Bhagavatam are important works in the study of consciousness.

Read the Bhagavad-gita, Srimad Bhagavatam, and other preserved Sanskrit records at (QRC Link: http://vedabase.com)

The only end we would gain through this current technological showboating is that of an imitation. We can only imitate consciousness, and never create it, simply because of the fact that consciousness is not material.