Human Life

Conch.

Consciousness.

Environment? Dark. Pre-dawn. It must be before 4 am. Conch outside the house? I hope not. If the conch, it means Param Satya is outside the house, instead of in bed downstairs. An airhorn maybe? One that sounds like a conch? A stretch.

Conch.

Conch in the temple means arati. Conch outside means something very different: War.

A window shatters outside. Voices are raised and in conflict. Heart rate increases. Is that our car? Adrenaline hits the bloodstream. Body surges up, mind focuses to a single point: no matter, what is done is done, what is about to be done has to be done with full focused attention.

Searching for my glasses. Not there. Curses! Deviation from routine leads to dangerous vulnerability.

Abandon the search for glasses. Lights. Check time. 2.55 am. Outside pants? On the railing. Retrieve them. Glasses nearby. No shirt - if application of force is required appearing with no shirt will be a greater deterrent.

Outside. No movement near our car. Voices across the road. Param Satya is there. Approach at an angle, stand off and assess.

Two people, both disturbed. Listen to the tones of voice, look for the posture of the body. No immediate threat. Don't go in, because with no shirt on and adrenaline in the bloodstream it will raise the intensity.

Situation seems stable. Another neighbour appears. Christopher, an older man. He reminds me of Bhagavat Asraya. He reassures the couple and together he and Param Satya work with them to resolve their situation. The girls feet and hand are cut from broken glass. She is drunk and distressed. The guy is rapidly sobering, and embarrassed.

Return to the house and put on a shirt and hooded jacket. Watch from the shadows.

They go back inside. We return to the house. 3.30 am.

Happiness in the mode of ignorance is nectar in the beginning and poison in the end. When you trace the chain of action and reaction back from your suffering you find that it directly connects with your proactive attempt to create enjoyment.

"Don't worry," Param Satya told her. "When you've been married for twenty years you'll look back at this and laugh."

Reassuring, perhaps, but I am more cynical. Statistically it is unlikely that they will marry, or remain married for 20 years if they do. And then, I would be more likely to cringe than laugh looking back at it.

Social destruction.

www.foodmatters.tv

We should not pray for good health, rather we should work dutifully to maintain the body we have been given, and accept what happens as the Lord's mercy upon us.

With respect to the body our prayer should be that the Lord's will be done to our body and through our body.

There is a difference between thinking of your body, and thinking you are your body.

The right type of bodily consciousness is favorable to sustained devotional service.

Last Wednesday Jagat Pati das left his body in Cairns, North Queensland, Australia.

He had been fighting a brain tumour for some time. After prolonged treatment allopathic doctors had given up hope on him, so he and his wife Taruni dd travelled to an alternative health care center in Mexico for treatment. Despite their efforts and prayers, and the prayers of the devotees, it was Krishna's will that he leave his body at this time.

Jagat Pati was a very humble and gentle soul - he was extremely thoughtful and sensitive. I last saw him at Ratha Yatra in 2006 in Cairns. He had been initiated by H.H. Hrdayananda Goswami, and I was struck by his deep thoughtfulness. He struck me as a person who reached deep into his conscience and derived his direction and strength by following what he found there.

Jagat Pati and his wife Taruni ran Gaura Nitai's restaurant in Cairns, a popular tourist destination on Australia's east coast. Craig, currently residing at New Govardhana farm in New South Wales, and Acyuta Bhava, serving in Brisbane, are both fruits of their outreach and care.

In 2007 Jagat Pati and Taruni reconfirmed their life partnership in a Vedic marriage ceremony, held after the Ratha Yatra they organized.

Prem Vilas das, seen in the background here after performing the wedding yajña for Jagat Pati and Taruni last year, performed the funeral rites for Jagat Pati on Friday.

Srila Bhakti Tirtha Swami explained that when Vaisnavas are alive we pray for them. When they have passed on we pray to them.

I pray for the blessings of Jagat Pati prabhu.

On the one hand: Pastor Ted Haggard, former pastor of megachurch New Life and head of US parachurch organization National Association of Evangelicals. Caused a huge fallout when his covert homosexuality was revealed.

"The reason I kept my personal struggle a secret is because I feared that my friends would reject me, abandon me and kick me out, and the church would exile and excommunicate me. And that happened and more," he says.

- Haggard says he still struggles with sexuality, MSNBC

On the other hand:

Same Same 2008 - Meet the 25 most influential gay and lesbian Australians for 2008. news.com.au gallery

Now, moral pronouncements about homosexuality per se aside, what has the effect been, and what is the ongoing effect of forcing gay persons in ISKCON into the closet?

My personal observation and experience is that it has caused, and is causing, a culture of duplicity to develop in the management of the society. This duplicity and compromise of integrity then provides a vector of entry for other things.

You cannot have sattva, illumination, when people are being forced to present two faces.

H.H. BG Narasingha Maharaja (initiated by Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami as Jagat Guru Swami, later took shelter of Srila B.R. Sridhar Swami) is opening India's first Surf Ashram, according to an article in Huffington Post [source].

According to the article his ashram is supported by a number of businesses, including an art gallery, a web design business, and a bottled water business, and he is now branching out into teaching surfing.

Now before we get the whole "Bogus! Deviation! Hippies! Hawaii! Siddhasvarupananda!" response I'd like to point out a few things.

Number 1: creating varnashram, or stable social communities with progressive devotional development, requires an economic basis.

Number 2: if your economic basis can also function as an outreach to share Krishna Consciousness with others, that's a bonus. Stickers with bogus charity lines need not apply.

Number 3: there's nothing inherently wrong with surfing. Sure it's not kevala-bhakti, but then again - what do you do between 9 am and 5 pm Monday to Friday?

Number 4: This is not a replacement for devotional service, any more than say, teaching hatha-yoga, like my wife does.

Global financial crisis aside, the Surfing Swamis' timing looks to be right. McKinsey & Co. predicts that by 2025 the Indian middle class will grow tenfold to 500 million people. As Indians get richer, they're getting braver, too.

According to India Today magazine, the adventure tourism business -- including trekking, climbing, caving, diving and paragliding -- is growing at more than 35 percent a year, with the potential to attract another half a million foreign tourists.

Maybe a formal sannyasi isn't the best person to do this. I'm sure that many would make this argument: best to leave this to a grhasta, and let all the proponents of pure bhakti run him down to maintain philosophical purity (you have to have that, and I'm not being sarcastic); but let's see what happens - and let those who want to stay true to another form stick with that and show where it goes.

We need both innovators and conservatives for the society to function properly - that is to stay relevant to the outside society and to stay true to our roots.

This morning I was considering starting a facebook group for Vaisnava Bodybuilders. Then I thought: "Nah, Eric will tell me to get out of his head."

But maybe this Surf Ashram is a sign that I should do it...

Ping me on facebook if you're interested.

Yesterday I added a friend in Facebook who has the exact same name as me - at least first name and second name.

He added me as a friend, and queried: "Is your name Joshua or Sitapati?"

Of course the answer is: "Both"

My Christian name is Joshua, my Vaisnava name is Sitapati.

Back in the day, lving in an Anglo-Saxon or Germanic tribe back in the old country, my name would have been just Wulf [wikipedia], meaning "the son of Wolf", who was the strong, powerful guy in the village named after the animal. Then, when we converted to Christianity through the influence of travelling missionaries I would have been given a "Christian name", in my case "Joshua" (meaning: Yahweh is Salvation [ref], roughly analogous to Mukunda), giving me the name Joshua Wulf.

Even today the term "Christian name" is commonly used in Western countries to denote the forename, as distinct from the surname (sirename), or family name [more on surnames].

The perjorative term karmi name is philosophically incorrect and a manifestation of cult mentality, for all you brain-washed cult members out there mouthing it unconsciously. ;-)

So the next stage of cultural evolution is the arrival of Vaisnavism to the Western countries (pascatya desa-tarine), and the adoption of Vaisnava, or "devotional" (note that Christian names are already devotional) names, by bearers of Christian names.

My son's name is interesting: Prahlad Narasingha Wulf Felix (Aussie form: Prahlad Wulf). In South American countries, such as Perú, where he was born, and other countries influenced by Spanish culture, everybody has two surnames - patrinomical and matrinomical. His father's surname is Wulf, referring to the Wolf, and his mother's surname is Felix, the name of a famous cat. Felix means "happy" or "lucky" in Latin (Spanish felicidad = happiness). Prahlad is the name of a famous devotee, and it means "excess of joy" [ref] or "one who gives joy to others" (what else do you do when you have an excess?).

We gave Prahlad his name because at the time he was conceived and through the early months of Param's pregnancy we were absorbed in the work of publishing "Los Enseñanzas Trascendentales de Prahlad Maharaja", a Spanish-language edition of The Transcendental Teachings of Prahlad Maharaja. It was also appropriate because his arrival brought us a lot of joy, after Western doctors told us we would never have children without major surgical intervention (go the Ayurveda!).

And what does this have to do with foreskins?

Funny you should ask that...

2000 years ago, as Paul began to spread his particular doctrines based on the personality of Christ (as distinct from the teachings of Christ's actual disciples, who were in doctrinal conflict with Paul) he found an extremely receptive audience amongst Gentile communities that had developed on the fringe of ex-pat Jewish communities.

Many non-Jews appreciated and respected the moral standards of the Jews, their monotheism, and their community spirit. One of the things that held them back from converting to Judaism, adopting a Jewish name and joining the tribe, however, was the slight detail of the chop-chop. Maybe not such a big deal when you're a baby, but a different story as an adult male in a pre-anaesthetic/antiseptic world.

Then along came Paul with a new version of Judaism (Paulian Christianity) with basically all the good bits, and no need to lose any of your bits to join. The Jewish community fringe joined his new movement in droves, adopting Christian names, and he gained huge initial momentum. The rest, as they say, is history...

"Hello My Name Is" photo from red5standingby via flickr

Today my son Prahlad, age 6 1/2, asked me how to clean his belly button. I explained that he should wash his body in warm water for some time, and then could use a cotton swab to clean inside. However, he should be careful, because the belly button is one area where it's easy to stick something inside the body, or for the intestines or bowel to come out. This is called a hernia.

I told him that when he was a baby he had a hernia through his belly button. It's actually quite common for babies. Our neighbours, here in Australia, took their son for an operation to fix it. Prahlad was born in Peru, and we followed the advice of the midwife to strap a baby sock over his belly button with a bandage wound around his mid section. I did this dutifully every day, worried all the time, and several weeks later - voila: nothing to see.

Here's the summary:

Problem: My baby's belly button is protruding (sticking out) excessively.

Solution: Gently press the belly button back into the body and put a sock on it to hold it there. Bind the sock to the body by wrapping a bandage firmly, but not too tightly, around the body. Do this every day for a few weeks to allow the baby's body to continue to develop with the intestines inside the body.

Another tip for new parents, especially single mothers of boys (Gentiles only): after a few months have passed, you need to start pulling your son's foreskin back when you bathe him. As he gets older you need to teach him to do this.

If you don't do this he'll end up in the situation of a (single mother) co-worker's son, whom she took at age 12 to be circumsized (eek!) - not because they got the old time religion, but because his foreskin could not be retracted and became painful and swollen.

It has to be retracted to wash properly, and if it isn't done from an early age it will become too tight. Circumcision is an extreme fix. It is possible to gradually stretch it, even at a late age like 13 or 14, however it is painful and will take months to years to stretch properly. However, most single mothers and young boys in this situation, with the lack of knowledge that lead them into that situation in the first place, are probably going to opt for the surgical solution.

Sorry, no picture for that one.

Mechanics of the body and practical realities of having kids...

After going through the 18 hours of Prahlad's birth (I missed the last 30 minutes) I was cured of sexual desire for a good couple of years. It's not that birth is a beautiful thing. The living entity is beautiful because the soul is beautiful. No one marvels at the beauty of a still born baby.

Holding Prahlad in my hands and looking into his eyes looking up at me the day after he was born I realized that it is the soul that is beautiful - however, the way that the soul takes birth in this world, in the material body, is actually quite embarrassing...

Mike, ninja training requires not to eat garlic, eschalot neither onion.
Good luck ;D

- excerpted from an email at work