Spirituality Tips Guides

The recent events in Kazakhstan are a wake up call for devotees everywhere. I live in the US, which has a history of religious tolerance and respect for human rights, but in recent years, since 9/11/01 to be specific, there has been a systematic attempt by this federal government to dismantle basic civil rights even here. When you examine the contents of the Patriot Acts, the Military Commissions Act and several other similar laws that have been passed since 9/11/01, it becomes evident that the complete legal framework now exists to support a state of martial law.

The discretion to declare martial law rests entirely in the hands of one man, the president. The Supreme Court or Congress cannot intervene or review the situation for at least 6 months. Needless to say, the civil rights we now take for granted including free speech, religious freedom, and all the rest could not be guaranteed during such a situation. When the president declares martial law such as in the event of a “terrorist” attack, a natural disaster.

Even unrest in the form of government protests or civil disobedience, FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) would have the authority to commandeer farms, businesses and all local and state government facilities and personnel. It is interesting to note that 9/11/01 is the first day of a very long and difficult Rahu dasa in the new United States jyotish chart. Rahu is conjunct Mars in the 12th house. July 7, 1920, 16:39 Philadelphia PA.

Even without a military or natural disaster, economic crisis and a possible collapse as a result of oil shortages is close at hand. Peak oil, the state when oil extraction reaches it’s zenith, occurred in the US in the early 70’s. Global peak oil, by most expert accounts, is likely to occur on or around 2010. This means that by the end of this decade we will begin to see declines in oil production even in the Middle East and the world’s other major producers.

The result will be sharp increases in fuel prices as well as price increases in almost every category. When you closely examine the economy, you discover that practically every good and service we consume is somehow directly or indirectly dependent on oil either for production or distribution. As the plateau of oil extraction tails off to begin the down slope, we will begin seeing the collapse of all oil dependent economies and increased conflicts over the remaining oil reserves in Venezuela, North Africa, the Middle East, Mexico, Russia etc.

In fact, in most of the world the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq is seen as nothing more than a power grab for some of the largest oil fields on the planet. In the US we’re told these wars are to fight “terrorism”. In any case, the immense amount of energy being expended in these wars will only exacerbate the problem.

In the time we have left before the crisis state, it is extremely important that devotees individually and collectively plan and act to achieve a high degree of self-sufficiency. If the preaching of Krsna consciousness is to continue post-collapse, devotees need to be in a position of strength and relative comfort. This means we should be planning and installing renewable energy systems, growing food, having the means to obtain potable water when the grid goes down, and dozens of other important considerations.

Obviously, the rural properties will be the best refuges and this is exactly the reason Srila Prabhupada urged us to purchase and develop them. The rural ashrams provide the best opportunities to grow food, develop sustainable energy systems, eg, solar, wind, biomass, etc, and also allow devotees a safe haven from the certain chaos and likely violence in the cities.

But as the events in Kazakhstan illustrate, it behooves us to carefully consider exactly which areas will be the best survival outposts. In one sense, every Vaisnava outside of India could be viewed suspiciously and therefore a possible threat. Areas predominated by religious extremists will most likely be some of the worst places for devotees to seek refuge. In addition, areas that have a history of racial or ethnic tensions could be unsafe also. Devotees in some rural districts have cultivated very good relationships with the local people and authorities and in my view, this can be very important in a crisis situation.

If the locals are already hostile to the devotee community, it is very likely that a time of scarcity and tension will only exacerbate the hostility. Therefore, good community relationships should also be a high priority on the list of necessary preparations for the coming crises.

I believe that it’s important to seriously begin the preparations needed to survive and spread Krsna consciousness in the post-oil world now. Our GBC, temple presidents, and senior devotees need to understand where world events are headed and lead the devotee communities in this effort. Without this important action our communities, preaching efforts and the lives of many devotees will be put in jeopardy. I would appreciate any and all feedback and correspondence on this subject. Dandavat pranams to all the Vaisnavas.

Chakra.org is a Vaisnava website designed to encourage the growth of devotion, foster critical thinking, and promote communication among Vaisnavas world-wide. Although differences of opinion will occur, we aim to provide a forum for mutual respect among the multiple strands of our community.

Before we get to what is the greatest invention in the history of the world, we should visit Germany in 1447. In that time, a goldsmith and printer, Johannes Gutenberg, created the Gutenberg printing press. This technology spread like wildfire throughout Europe and then on to the rest of the world.

The impact of it is comparable to the invention of the alphabet and the development of writing.

Prior to the printing of books on a massive scale, books were painstakingly copied. This resulted in both fewer books and also more inaccurate books, because the copying of the original changed from one version to the next. In addition, since in Europe, Latin was the language of scholars, only a small population could even read them. When books were printed, popular European vernaculars were used to communicate to a wider audience.

Our next evolutionary leap was creating a medium of instant publication and a worldwide audience. This is the World Wide Web.

It may be as significant a leap in the consciousness of humankind as was Albert Einstein’s revolutionary reinterpretation of the Universe. Despite the brilliance of Isaac Newton’s work, the new theory of the Universe changed the consciousness of humankind forever.

The World Wide Web may very well be the greatest invention in history. Tim Berners-Lee has invented something that reminds one of a multifaceted diamond. When you look at each face, you discover a new reality.

One face of the World Wide Web is like The Glass Bead Game.

In his Nobel Prize winning novel, Magister Ludi, The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse defined the nature of knowledge and intelligence in a beautiful metaphor. He described it as a game where pieces were played on a board.

“The Glass Bead Game is a mode of playing with the total contents and values of our culture. All the insights, noble thoughts and works of art that the human race has produced in its creative eras, all that subsequent periods of scholarly study have reduced to concept and converted into intellectual values, the Glass Bead Game player plays like an organist on an organ.”

Like the Glass Bead Game, the World Wide Web ranges over the entire intellectual cosmos.

Another face of the World Wide Web is like the marketplace of Ancient Athens.
Here democracy evolved in its purest state. People talked to each other, shared information, challenged points-of-view, and understood each other. This informal gathering of thinkers birthed
one of the most significant early cultures of the Western World.

Because there are so many contributors to the World Wide Web, neither governments nor corporations nor media organizations have much control over it. Blogging, especially, has evolved to a place where absolute candor is possible. In addition, writers are free to wax eloquent in their pdf or exe files without waiting for somebody to approve the marketability of their ideas. Discussion groups for everything under the sun exist. Then there are the social networking websites, like You Tube and others, where all kinds of opinions are expressed through videos. Never in the history of humanity has it been possible for the common man or woman to speak their mind to so many people in complete freedom.

Another face of the World Wide Web is like The Great Books of the Western World series.

The quintessence of the value of that series has been captured by the original associate editor, the late Mortimer Adler.

He said that to read them was to be involved in a great conversation because it was like
“authors sitting around a table in the same room–totally oblivious to the circumstances of their own time, place and diversity of tongues–confronting each other in agreement, disagreement or otherwise differing about what they have to say on the subject. The sessions of the conference thus imagined would take many days, months, perhaps even years, for it would cover the whole range of ideas and issues that are the objects and concerns of human understanding, always and everywhere.”

As you surf from one website to another, from one discussion board to another, or as you communicate instantly by email, is this not like a great conversation that informs your mind and feeds your soul?

Finally, another face of the World Wide Web is like A Global Brain.

Philosophers from Plato to Aristotle, from Thomas Aquinas to Herbert Spencer have always considered knowledge to be a unity, where everything is potentially connectable to everything else. The human brain is a powerhouse of networks of infinite complexity, where every neuron has the potentiality to connect with every other. Similarly, knowledge itself, as described by writer James Burke, is “a gigantic and ever-growing sphere in space and time, made up of millions of interconnecting, crisscrossing pathways.”

Knowledge has never been so linked together as it is now on the World Wide Web.

The World Wide Web is growing organically, like a great shout of unity across the world. Perhaps each day, we who use it, are reinventing the freedom of speech that once existed in ancient Athens, a freedom which will lead to a whole new world of creativity for everyone.

Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. The Empowered Soul

Reincarnation means that the soul is changing bodies. This change of bodies occurs not only at death, but throughout life; from boyhood to youth to old age, then to a baby’s body. These moment by moment changes are too small for the person to be aware of, but when we consider greater amounts of time, then the change of bodies is obvious. The change of body known as death is the most apparent.

The Bhagavad-gita compares the change of body at the time of death to a person discarding old and useless clothes, and putting on new garments. Regardless of whatever plans and adjustments we make, our body eventually wears out, and we are obliged to accept a new one.

Although everyone must die, still we are making plans as though death was not certain. Saints have described this as the most amazing thing in this world. That is, even though we see that everyone is dying and getting old, we think that it will not happen to us, and we neglect the real purpose of human life: self-realization. One must inquire as to what happens at the time of death.

Although one may have the body of a man in this life, the soul may take the body of a woman in the next. One may have an oriental body in one birth, a western body in the next; or one may take birth in an animal or insect species as a result of one’s activities and desires in this life. It is important to understand how the soul transmigrates from one body to the next.

How is Our Next Body Determined?

There are two factors that determine which body we shall obtain in the next birth. The first is our karma -the reactions to our good and bad activities that were performed in this life and in previous lives. The second factor is our desire to enjoy particular sense objects.

The example of a man purchasing a car is appropriate in this regard. He has a desire to enjoy in a particular way with his car, and he also has a certain amount of money to spend. He takes both factors into account to determine which model to purchase.

Krishna tells us that the state of consciousness that we have upon leaving the present body determines the type of body that we will have in the next birth.’ This is our “final exam” which we should study for throughout this life by cultivating remembrance of Krishna. One may think that at the time of death he will suddenly make up for the rest of his life by “getting religion.” However, things don’t work that way. The thoughts, desires and attachments that one has cultivated throughout his life will be reflected in those final moments. There is no way to cheat on this “exam.”

As far as activities are concerned, we should only perform activities that carry no karmic weight (technically called “akarmic” activities), so that we will not have to return to this world either to receive bad or good results. Then we will return to the spiritual abode of the Lord.

For more wisdom, visit http://www.bkgoswami.com and click on Books.

People are often accused of being asleep. This assertion is made by people who believe that they are awake.

Is this just a metaphor used to launch a pejorative statement?

Or is it, like the difference between waking hours and sleeping hours, a condition where awareness is partially or completely absent?

Actually, it appears to be more than a metaphor and also a part of the human condition to be asleep.

Here are five ways we are all asleep.

One, we fail to notice things.

Due to the way our brains work, our minds can only notice a few possibilities out of an infinite sea. There are many reasons for this phenomena. Despite having 15 billion brain cells, the bulk of these are used for unconscious processes.

Brain lateralization is one reason, for example.

The left brain sees things differently from the right brain. And most people favor one over the other due to cultural bias.

The left brain focuses on language, mathematics, logic, numbers, sequence, linearity, and analysis.

The right brain focuses on forms and patterns, spatial manipulation, rhythm, musical appreciation, imagination, and daydreaming.

Those who do use both sides, communicating ideas between the corpus callosum, are those who have adopted special measures to override the cultural bias, like meditation, to create whole brain thinking.

Two, in a literal sense, the world is not what it appears to be. We appear to live in a world of spaces and objects, but actually this is an illusion created by the brain and the sense organs.

The smallest thing that we can see is made up of atoms. To see the atoms in a tennis ball, we would have to blow it up to the size of the earth. The atoms in it would then be the size of grapes.

If you were to now blow up an atom to see it more clearly, you would have to make it the size of a 14 story building. The largest part in the atom, the nucleus, would be the size of a grain of salt. However, since this is 2,000 times bigger than an electron, these would be the size of dust particles.

The real world is mainly empty space, punctuated by bits of matter, whose real nature are not hard bits of something but patterns of vibrations.

Three, we think of many things throughout the day, but most of this thinking is done in imaginary time. Imaginary time is the past, where things, events, people, and places have ceased to be. Sometimes they have passed away from our sense perceptions. Sometimes they may not exist at all. When we project the memory of the past into the future, we spend time in an imagined state where things will be different for us.

The only real time is now. The only real place is here. However, are awareness is seldom on the here and now. While maintaining enough of our consciousness to be rooted and functioning in the present, we frequently drift of into imaginary time.

The only difference between day dreaming and night dreaming is the intensity of our inner images. During the day, we are partially aware that we are not in imaginary time, and our experiences have a certain order to them. During the night, or when we are asleep in bed, we are completely aware of only imaginary time and our experiences have no clear logic, and one experience can transform into another within seconds and without an explanation.

A fourth way, we are asleep is because we think that our consciousness is our own. This may not be true. Our thoughts are only borrowed from the general thoughts of all humankind. Further, we may all share in a collective unconscious. Thus, all our thoughts are only variations on the theme promoted by our environment and our cultural conditioning on what things mean.

Finally, a fifth way we are asleep is that we assume that there are only four dimensions to reality, the three of space and the one of time. But both mystics and physicists often speak of the possibility of other dimensions

If we are all asleep, then, is an enlightened person awake?

Only in a relative sense. They know they are dreaming, while everyone else is convinced that their dream is real. In a way, an enlightened person, is like a lucid dreamer, while others are convinced that all this sound and fury called life means something and that the hour we strut upon the stage is of some great significance.

Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. The Empowered Soul

A half-feral cat showed up at our door 8-1/2 years ago, apparently abandoned, and we began feeding him. Now that he is older and has mellowed out a bit through the aging process and the hearing of Harinam in our house, he wants to stay inside more and more, especially in winter, but he refuses to use the cat box, so we put him out to go to toilet. He also gets some food and occasional shelter from at least one other householder in the neighborhood. I strive to keep him as a pet without getting overly attached. Cats in general set the example of a miser perfectly, and he is no exception, but he is gradually responding to our overtures of kindness.

I certainly do not agree with the euthanizing of “unwanted” animals. Even if we may no longer be interested in them, they are certainly interested in their own lives. In the case of an unwanted pet, better to set them loose if you do not want them. Although many will perish, some will survive. This is a better chance for them because all will perish if euthanized. Lethal injection (the most common form of euthanasia) sets in motion a series of negative karmic events for its proponents and practictioners, thereby making the world an increasingly cruel place for us all. In the case of pets going feral and having progeny, as Ananda das rightly stated it, nature will have its course and many will perish under natural circumstances, so we need have no fear of feral cats or dogs taking over the planet.

His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad repeatedly stated that Krishna could maintain innumerable beings on earth provided we are willing to follow His laws and not take more than our allotted quota (Sri Isopanisad). Therefore I wholly disagree with the premise that householder men undergo vasectomies. The household ashram (grhastha, not grhamedi) is given for those sincere jivas who, because of immaturity, cannot wholly control their senses. Pregnancy is the result of their union, and in fact, repeated pregnancies are more often than not the result. Progeny raised as Krishna-conscious devotees becomes service, and thereby the grhastha ashram becomes sanctified.

Unfortunately, in modern times, the general public and even some devotees are swayed by the mammonistic propaganda that to have numerous progency will result in them becoming deprived of a “high standard of care and a chance for advanced education. “Advanced education, according to Srila Prabhupad, means practicing Krishna consciousness, not necessarily attaining advanced material degrees for improving our livelihoods.This is certainly an illusion, as we frequentlly see people with advanced degrees in relatively humble occupations for which they are overly qualified.

As for the issue of care, the same standard of care would be there in a larger population because approximately the same percentage of the population would go into the medical field.Additionally, each jiva being born into the material nature brings with him the requisite karma sufficient for his maintenance. So a householder with a larger family would still find sufficient wealth to maintain his wife and progeny because the children would essentially be attracting wealth to the family sufficient to cover their own maintenance. In other words, the system is designed that all our needs can be readily met provided (1) we are not sinful, which will produce lack, and (2) we do not take more than our quota of goods and services.

Chakra.org is a Vaisnava website designed to encourage the growth of devotion, foster critical thinking, and promote communication among Vaisnavas world-wide. Although differences of opinion will occur, we aim to provide a forum for mutual respect among the multiple strands of our community.

Sigmund Freud believed that human beings were motivated by two inner drives: eros and thanatos.

Eros was the drive for life, for more of it, for the abundance and fullness of it.

Thanatos was its opposite, the urge to overcome the disappointments of life by craving forgetfulness and, ultimately, oblivion through death.

While most of Freudianism has been debunked because his ideas, although exciting to the imagination, lack self-consistency, observed verification, and close correlation with reality, his ideas on life and death appear to have an axiomatic quality to them. This could be because these ideas have such a primal quality. It is difficult to deny they exist because a casual observation of any human life shows these two forces at work.

In fact, it may not be unreasonable to ask that since death is inevitable, we should not rush to it prematurely, by trying to arrest the quickening of our desires. Thanatos will have its day soon enough. Wisdom, perhaps, consists of simply embracing eros while it is still available to us.

When for a moment you stop thinking about all the things in your life that are not working very well and instead focus on the sensation of livingness, what you experience is joy. This joy is a powerful vibration. It stimulates more of itself and rises, if you let it, to the point of ecstasy, a place where you are standing outside yourself in exhuberant wonder at the miracle of it all.

Another interesting thing happens when you allow eros to have a say in your mien and predispositions. You experience a sense of communion and sympathy with other sentient beings. A corresponding reaction then manifests within them and they start to view you as a friend, as one who is aligned with their own urge for well-being.

This attitude, if allowed to continue, expands even more profoundly. From directing it to specific points of light, other places where sentience is vibrant, it moves to an all-encompassing, all-embracing perspective, where all things, living or non-living, close or far, familiar or unfamiliar start to correlate with your affection. You see not your own life or that of other beings, but a galaxy of Life. You experience not only your own awareness but that of all intelligence everywhere.

If pushed still further, you will fall into a mystical experience, where who you are is everyone, and in this oceanic consciousness of unification, life itself is seen as an infinitude and your view of thantos fades into viewing it as an illusion.

This idea is not a beautiful fiction. Examples of people who have reached this state, people like the later Lester Levinson or contemporary teachers like Echart Tolle, can be found.

The principle of eros then is one of circulation. It expands and explores, it connects with all, and it is in sympathetic vibration with all.

From this perspective, you find no opposite, no direct contradiction to eros. You step out of the realm of dualistic thinking. You enter the here and now and lose all interest in the then and there. Thanatos is exposed as an imposter. Instead, you appreciate that while forms come and go and entropy does appear to be a universal constant, consciousness itself never fades or dies but only transmutes itself into ever-widening arcs of comprehension of itself.

Yet the uplifting power of eros is rarely fully liberated in most human lives. People generally do not think of enlightenment as a possible future. If they do think about it, it is regarded as an anomaly best avoided. Their imagination is not inflamed by such visions.

The culprit for this narrow perspective is thanatos. It puts a lid on everything. You dare not hope too much, you dare not try too much, and you dare not say, feel, or think too much because of thanatos. Inherent in the cultural codes of most societies, encrusted in its mythos and logos, it has taken on a consensus reality.

Another way of looking at eros is love. Another way of looking at thanatos is fear. Love pushed to an extreme is liberation, but fear is what restrains love from full expression. The pursuit of enlightenment is the pursuit of pure being; it is a movement toward maximal allowing; it is a declaration of liberation. People who pursue it are those who desire to fully experience themselves, pushing their individuality until it expands into a universality. Most religions aim at fostering obedience, not release into true self-emancipation. They are corralled by a thanatos so subtle it is only discerned by the most acute, who upon suddenly discovering it may just as quickly repress it.

Eros is held in check by thanatos. When a person can get free of this bond, then life in its fullness is experienced and is embraced as an eternal factor. It is a rare and special experience; so rare and so special, in fact, that it is seldom even articulated. Thanatos has a way of squelching the idea of being more than human, of being more fully alive.

Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas His book Never Ever Give Up tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed. The Empowered Soul