namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

by Kaunteya das

At times the standards of our "grihasthas" are so low and disfunctional (ethically, spiritually, economically, etc.) that I am thinking of starting a campaign to promote grihamedhi consciousness, in the spirit of "something is better than nothing."

In ISKCON's pshyche the word grihamedhi represents (and with reason) an unacceptable social stereotype. "The grhastha means he is making the best use of a bad bargain. And the grhamedhi means he is animal. " Srila Prabhupada said in a Gita lecture in London, on 20 August 1973. Such references have created an impression of the grihamedhi as an unspeakably corrupted being, a detestable individual functioning on a level of debasement to which devotees could never possibly plunge?

"Child-worship is more important than deity-worship. If you cannot spend time with your child, then stop the duties of pujari. These children are given to us by Krishna. They are Vaisnavas and we must be very careful to protect them. These are not ordinary childern, they are Vaikuntha children, and we are very fortunate we can give them chance to advance further in Krishna Consciousness. That is very great responsibility, do not neglect it or be confused."

Letter to Arundhati, July 30, 1972

I lifted this from the excellent Krishna Kathamrita Bindu eMag:

by Sri Srimad Gour Govinda Swami

In his blog View From a New Vrindaban Ridge Madhava Gosh Prabhu quotes a conversation between Srila Prabhupada, Hari Sauri Prabhu, Ramesvara Prabhu, and Jagadisa Prabhu during a train-ride in India. In this conversation Srila Prabhupada esplains how he expects his disciples to create a Krishna conscious society based on varnasrama-dharma.

This week the ISKCON New Govardhana farming project in Australia received organic certification from the national Organic Growers Association. After several rigorous inspections, the farm was granted a certificate of compliance which allows all fruit and vegetables grown to carry the official OGA logo.

Any student of Srila Prabhupada will at once recognize the phrase “plain living and high thinking.” It occurred frequently and memorably in his discourse. It functioned as kind of motto or slogan to epitomize Prabhupada’s vision of a natural spiritual culture, an alternative to our modern, “soul-killing” industrial civilization.

Commitment is an essential feature of all devotee relationships, especially the marriage relationship.

All of us have ups and downs, periods of craziness, and periods of clarity. Of course, as we become purified, situated in goodness and, ultimately, transcendental, we fluctuate less and less in our mood and character. But while our material conditioning still has a grip on us we experience periods of more or less Krishna consciousness.

This been said, devotees who have seriously committed themselves to applying the process have in effect declared, by this demonstration of commitment, that they deeply value purity of heart and aspire for it themselves. When a person shows such commitment and dedication, Krishna takes a personal interest in them and is committed to them in return. As devotees we must do the same for each other.

[Video about a Buddhist couple's marriage experiment inside.]

It's me, leading a discussion on "The Real Cost of the Necessities of Life".

I'll be using these two articles:

• Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’
• Why walking to the shops might not damage the planet "more than going by car" after all

...In a study involving Dutch, American and Kurdish students, psychologists in the Netherlands found that...young people invariably considered [their] potential mate's attractiveness the most important quality, whereas parents uniformly paid more attention to the suitors' social background or group affiliation -- race, religious background and social class...

...Parents and offspring clash, the researchers argued, because their genetic self-interests, while overlapping, are not identical.

I actually wrote this article 9 years ago, in 1999, so times were changing then and have continued to change since then…. Although some aspects of it are dated, when I found it in a box of old papers I thought enough of it was still relevant to feel inspired to share it. :-)

[Comment to his own post on www.dandavats.com]

From the Article:

Similarly, men have to a large degree lost the good quality of their greater capacity for intelligence and retained a superiority complex through social conditioning. Along with this is a concomitant lack of humility that characterizes all interactions in Kali-yuga; this is the age of quarrel and misunderstanding.

Amongst all this, men have insisted that women live up to the Vedic standard of submission, chastity, and obedience, without insisting that they themselves live up to the terms of their varnasrama contract: providing protection, well informed level-headed guidance, and support. Varnasrama is a social contract—all parties have to fulfill their obligations under the terms of the agreement.

I am starting to spread the news, promoting the concept of if you aren’t a vegan, and you drink milk from commercial sources, you are contributing to a system that slaughters cows. To offset that, you need to donate regularly to cow protection programs.

Visitors to my blog may have noted that I have added a widget in my sidebar where the connection to my fundraising page for GEETA ( an organization that protects cows) can easily be gotten to. GEETA is one of many cow protection programs that will accept your donations.

In a discussion with professors from the University of Durban (Oct 8, 1975) Srila Prabhupada proclaims “forget religion.” Prabhupada wants the discussion to revolve around very practical and scientific principles. He goes on to say that “knowledge of God should be (have a) practical application in life.” The idea of presenting the practically of Krishna Consciousness was one of the reoccurring themes in his converstaions.

So in a world that has indeed forgotten religion, or distorted religious principles, the preaching, more and more, has to make Krishna consciousness relevant to people’s lives in a practical way. And maya, in serving the devotees, is more and more turning the materialistic culture topsy-turvy and thus giving devotees the opportunity to offer solutions.

The article that I linked to the other day, Why I changed my mind about Water Fluoridation poignantly illustrates the dynamic that I described in my 2006 article What's really going on?

Most people are innocent and easily mislead. They in turn mislead others. A "conspiracy" doesn't require people to keep a secret, it just requires them to truly believe in what they are doing, even though it's wrong.

by Karnamrita dasa

There are different opinions regarding social issues or philosophy among devotees. Any perspective, side of an issue, or point of the Krishna conscious philosophy can be carried to an extreme in relation to others.

I tend to be on the middle of most issues, much to the chagrin of those who strongly advocate different perspective or causes. I do have strong opinions on certain issues, yet I am usually not on the front lines of confrontation. Ideally, even when I disagree I try to see the other perspective, and understand why the person holds the conviction they do.

by HH Jayadvaita Maharaja

Twenty years ago, no one gave a damn. You could gum up a river with factory sludge, chop down rain forests wholesale, spray fluorocarbons into the air like a kid sprinkling confetti, and no one would say boo.

No longer. Grade-school kids want to grow up to be ecologists. New York tycoons sort their trash to recycle. Rock singers play concerts to save prairies and wetlands. Political candidates tell us they’re worried about the fate of the three-toed baboon.

Caring about the environment helps you feel good about yourself. At the supermarket you choose paper instead of plastic. You write your thank-you notes on cards made from ground-up newsprint and cotton waste. You chip in a few dollars for Greenpeace. Hey, you care about the earth. You’re a righteous human being.

Krishna doesn’t just love milk, Krishna loves cows. So how does he feel if we are offering him grocery store milk that is laden with antibiotics and growth hormones—milk that comes from cows that are abused and mistreated and finally sent to the slaughterhouse?

To give milk the cow must be pregnant and then have a calf. On both organic and non-organic farms, cows are kept continuously pregnant. On non-organic farms mother cows are treated like machines, chained by their necks in concrete stalls for months at a time, their udders are swollen so large that they sometimes drag on the ground. Cows give milk for the same reasons humans do—to feed their babies. To keep milk production high, cows are kept pregnant by artificial insemination and their male calves are taken away at 1-2 days old and chained inside cramped dark crates to be killed for veal. The milk meant for them is what we buy on the grocery shelves. They are not even given a chance to drink their mother’s milk.

Hare Krishna. Please Accept my worthless obesiances at your feet. All glories to ISKCON’s Founder-Acarya, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada.

I am writing this article in response to Karuna Prabhu ’s “Varnasrama,” and to a number of VAD related articles that appeared on dandavats.com. Rather than just write a comment, I have decided to write a quick article instead.

I first heard the Vrndavana Varnasrama Morning Walk Tapes (1974) when they first arrived from India. At that time I was working with Krishna Kanti Prabhu in the Golden Avatar Studios, and when the tapes arrived I had the service of opening them, placing them on the tape deck, and making master copy duplicates. As I did this, I was the very first to hear those tapes. (By Krishna’s arrangement, those were the first and last tapes that I performed this service on; I joined the BBT Art Department immediately afterwards).

“Cows constitute the stay of all creatures. Cows are the refuge of all creatures. Cows are the embodiment of merit. Cows are sacred and blessed and are sanctifiers of all. One should never, in even one’s heart, do an injury to cows. One should, indeed, always confer happiness on them.”

The above and following excerpts are from an article entitled, “Milk in the Age of Convenience.”

“As with all great treasures, milk comes with certain caveats. As our society further distances itself from nature and turns gradually more synthetic, these caveats turn into dire warning signals. A look at milk’s qualities as expressed in the magnificent Ayurvedic text, the Caraka Samhita, shows the potentiality of both misuse and overuse…Sattva is a state of lightness, equanimity, clarity, and, in this case, fortification, strength and vitality. Tamas, on the other hand, reflects dullness, confusion, sloth, and in this case, the process of compromising its quality, leading to ill health and the potentiality of allergies. But what exactly is “compromised” milk?

by Mantrini devi dasi

The North American Grihastha Vision Team (GVT) held their annual meeting in Prabhupada Village, North Carolina, the last week of April. The 12-person team reviewed their year's accomplishments and planned for the coming year. The future plans include rolling out a new schedule for the four-day VTE Grihastha Training Course, "Strengthening the Bonds that Free Us" (The next training will be held in Alachua, July 13-15, 2007, contact: gvisionteam108@yahoo.com), the development of one-day "mini" courses on such topics as Parenting, Finding a Worthy Partner, Communication Skills, and Problem Solving Skills; and expanding the organization to include interested persons as Grihastha Vision Team "associates."

Formed four years ago, the GVT is a group of devotees who are either registered counselors or have training in marriage education/preparation. It is the mission of the North American Grihastha Vision Team to support, strengthen, educate and enliven the individuals, couples and families who are or will be involved with the grihastha ashram. The GVT works with ISKCON temples throughout North America.

From Kripamoya Prabhu's blog, The Vaishnava Voice.

...

If we truly believe what our founder-acarya has told us, then we will view his movement - our movement - as a body which can bring about a spiritual revolution in human society. Nothing less. And that means our marriages must be revolutionary. Our marriages must be seen not only as our commitment to each other but as an offering to others who are yet to join us. When people see happy couples and happy families they will want to join us. If we have made a sacred and God-witnessed commitment to marriage then we must learn the scientific principles of how to create an enduring, unbreakable partnership. We must discuss our marriages, honour them, and do everything to support and protect them. We must speak up when we see couples in difficulty, help them, and never, ever, suggest the easy way out. The rewards for us all are enormous: emotionally, socially, and spiritually. And your great-grandchildren – and the future devotees of ISKCON - will thank you from their hearts.

By Madhava Gosh

If you drink factory milk, you drink its karma. There are some fancy rationalizations floating around to justify doing so, but if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it is a duck. You are responsible for your actions. Offering it to the spiritual master, who has mandated cow protection, and thinking that he is some karma filter that will make it all okay, is lame, IMHO. I don’t think you can ignore his instruction to protect cows, and then expect him to cover for you when you don’t. If you drink milk without protecting cows because of cost or inconvenience, then you are supporting factory style production, and all that that entails. Therefore you are seeing those cows as separate from Krishna.

Lecture by HH Radhanath Maharaja At the Wedding of Bhavatarine and Govinda Ghosh Govardhan Puja, New Vrndavana, October 25, 2002

... In 1969 when Prabhupada was here in New Vrndavana, he performed a marriage. And in his lecture he spoke something that fascinated me a lot. He explained how the duty of the husband and the wife were to dedicate each other to make their partner happy. Because Prabhupada said without happiness there cannot really be a growth of bhakti. It is actually the responsibility of husband and wife to keep each other happy in devotional service. ...