Hindu-ween?

Keepin' it fresh, cause devotional service is only as limited as our creativity is. Radha Sakhi sported as Spiderella for Halloween and we trick-or-treated till her bag was half full of clogged artery sticks.

Halloween is alright and all, but I prefer to celebrate El Dia de Los Muertos when surrounded by fellow enthusiasts. This is the traditional festival celebrated in Mexico when everyone builds an altar in their house and offers foodstuffs and other delectables to their ancestors. On November 1st and 2nd, every cemetery and mausoleum is packed to the gills with family and friends, crying, laughing, singing, praying, and dancing. All of the graves are showered with marigolds and call-a-lilies and other offerings. Beautiful sand paintings and millions of candles decorate the cities amongst a stir of calavera imagery and their wild artisans.

I've always loved the concept of an altar. It fascinates me how the altar is utilized in so many different cultures. What rocks about Hinduism is that an altar is honored and decorated everyday. In the Hare Krishna movement, everyday people around the world chant sacred mantras to honor our spiritual ancestors and beg for their blessings so that we may pursue our daily lives with intelligence and ability in order to serve all of humanity in meaningful ways with lasting results. Generally, mantras are more potent when chanted together. So if we want to truly honor our ancestors, why party once a year, when we can party everyday? Like my raver friends in Mexico say, "FULL ON!"

Sunrise Over Suburbia

Living in the suburbs of Northern Virginia these past few weeks has definitely taken a toll on my subconsciousness. I just can't think of a more unattractive and depressing landscape than a bunch of cookie-cutter apartment complexes intermingled with shopping plazas.

Yesterday morning, I woke up early to chant as usual. As I was finishing my meditation, the sun carried himself above the horizon and the most amazing shade of magenta filled the sky. My realization: No matter city, suburb, country, mountain, or dessert, the beauty of the sunrise remains an absolute truth.

Victory Over Evil

This past weekend I travelled to Gita Nagari in Port Royal, PA in order to celebrate the Victory Day of Lord Ramachandra over the demon Ravana, who is the personification of lust, anger and greed. I have always been fascinated with medieval forest epics like Robin hood, Willow, and Lord of the Rings, but little did I know of the ancient classic, the epic of all epics, the Ramayana. What is far out though is that the Ramayana is no fictional tale, it is factual history. Lord Rama is considered one of the ten primary incarnations of Lord Krishna, along with Lord Buddha and Lord Nrsimhadeva.
It was such a blessing to return home. Gita Nagari has felt like home since the first time I visited. I immediately paid my respects to all of the great personalities in the neighborhood like Mother Kaulini, Mother Jagannatha, and Mother Kartamisa, along with Gopa, our three-legged dog, the cows, the calves, the watermelon plants, the tomato plants, the sunflowers who are still holdin' on, and certainly to the newest batch of kittens in the barn. Soon the entire gang started filtering in and I was greeted by big smiles and open arms. Everyone is family at Gita Nagari, where everyone knows or wants to know your name and you feel free to just be yourself. I spent the morning cleaning the gorgeous hard-wood floor in the temple and the not-so-glorious floor in the prasadam hall and was cleaned up just in time for the arrival of His Holiness Varsana Swami, the resident sunnyasi at New Vrindavan. When Mother Kaulini and I approached his car to welcome him, Mother Kaulini called out, "AHA, finally we have captured you!" Maharaj blushed and with a little boy's smile replied, "I am very delighted to be captured!".
Maharaj gave lecture and recited most of the Ramayana with great enthusiasm and detailed intricacies. Afterwards, the kirtan started and we marched outside and down the path to the pasture where a 12-foot tall Ravana stood, complete with 10 demons heads and faces. Mother Kaulini told me the hair was harvested from a couple of goats some devotees take care of down the road.
Varsana Swami took a torch, lit it in the fire, and struck Ravana straight in the gut. Ravana immediately went up in flames, and to the onlookers surprise, fireworks began exploding from his heads. The crowd was delighted, giggling, dancing, smiles all around. Suddenly, fireworks began shooting into the crowd and the devotees were squealing, running, and clutching one another in fright. Thankfully no one was hurt and laughter ensued. The kirtan didn't skip a beat.

I found myself in such a state of bliss. I looked around and felt totally in love with everyone around me.
I couldn't stop taking pictures, especially close-up ones so I could really high-lite their facial expressions and genuine eyes, deep wells of compassion.
The kirtan continued back down to the temple and sumptuous prasadam was served out.
The last 8 days or so I have been engaged, perhaps, unengaged, in an intestinal cleanse, drinking only liquids, so I passed on the feast and served instead. Serving is where all the nectar is anyways.
The following morning, I woke up at 3am thinking it was 4. This ended up to be a great boon, for who should have walked into the temple bright and early but Varsana Swami himself. I had been fortunate only a handful of times to catch Varsana Swami in the temple at New Vrindavan early morning before 5am. This is an opportunity I recommend all to experience at least once in this lifetime. To hear Varsana Swami chant, is Vaikunta. It was and is beyond this realm, literally out of this world, and he kindly transports all within his vocal frequency to accompany him in the delight of Sri Sri Radha Damodara's pastimes.

"Can We Dance Now?"

I am most fortunate to be living with a talented artist who is inspiring my spiritual life in so many ways. Even though we are in the suburbs of northern Virgina, somehow we simultaneously exist in the spiritual world, running through lush green pastures with milk bucket and daisies in hand.

As of late, we have been preparing for Radha Sakhi's 4th grade dance performance to Stevie Wonder's Sir Duke. You can feel it all over! My brother believes Stevie Wonder should be the U.N. Ambassador of Education. In the liner notes of Stevie Wonder's album Songs in the Key of Life, he explains his philosophy as that of love mentalism. In one interview he explains that as "a positive tomorrow for all people, where we do not just talk about love or just feel it as a temporary thing, but really relate to it as something that lasts forever in our hearts and in our spirits and in the way that we do and our character." I offer my humble obeisances to Stevie Wonder, a true spiritual warrior.

"You may give them your love but not your thought, for they have their own thoughts. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth."
-Kahlil Gabran

I'm not JUST a vegetarian...

My sister tellin' it like it is...the perfection of culinary art!

Feed the World Week

A Call for Action!

October 15-21 will mark the annual observance of Feed the World Week (FWW). During this week, Food for Life volunteers and concerned vegetarians in over 60 countries will serve out more than 5 million karma-free vegetarian meals to the world!

1. Feed the World Week is based on a simple principle: For one week, the world should experience a wholesome, nonviolent diet, and thus pave the way for a peaceful and prosperous world.
   
2. Feed the World Week is an open community event to show how food when prepared and distributed with love, has the power to unite and heal the world.
   
3. Feed the World Week is a call for action: for the world to move away from animal agriculture—the greatest cause of environmental destruction and the principle reason why there is so much hunger in the world today. Most non-vegetarians are unaware that more than 70% of the world’s grain production is fed to livestock destined for slaughterhouses. That same grain could feed humans. Every year, millions of children in the developing world die from hunger, alongside fields of fodder destined for the West’s livestock.

In an attempt to correct this imbalance of the earth’s resources, Food for Life volunteers daily distribute over 800,000 karma-free meals to the needy of the world!

During Feed the World Week, we share vegetarian food in remembrance of the world’s 1.3 billion hungry. The fact is, if Americans reduced their meat consumption by 10 percent, enough grains would be saved to feed sixty million people!

For more info, check out the Food For Life website.

For all the Ladies in the House!

"One thing that keeps coming to my mind is I'm now very convinced that the very best women in the world are actually in the Hare Krishna movement."
-H.H. Hridayananda das Goswami

This past weekend I participated in a women's retreat back with my old girlfriends at New Vrindavan, West Virginia. Srila Acharyadev's quote above summarizes my experience.

In fact, the women's retreat is what first brought me to New Vrindavan. Last summer, I heard about the retreat at the Rainbow Gathering and was delighted to have an opportunity to come visit the temple. I was confused about the role of women in the ISKCON movement having always seen far more men than women at camp. I thought I would check things out for myself and meet the women who have been chanting Hare Krishna for the last forty years to observe exactly what this movement is all about.

It seems to me that I came for a visit and never ended up leaving. Needless to say, the women I met at last year's retreat impressed the heck out of me. After meeting so many incredible women, I thought to myself, now this is what it means to be intelligently empowered. Thus, I was thrilled to again have the opportunity to participate in this year's Vaisnavi retreat.
To be in the same room with women from all over the world, coming from different religions, and different cultures, yet united by faith in God, is a rare opportunity. I used to think that Hare Krishna was just another religion. I had no understanding that the Hare Krishna Movement is actually a spiritual collective, encouraging and facilitating the pursuit of pure love of God through many religious paths based on unified spiritual principles of truth, mercy, self-control, and cleanliness.

The women in this movement are the personification of these qualities. How can I resist their embrace? How can I bear to be in separation from them. Good thing there are Hare Krishna women representin' all over the world. It is comforting to know that in any given situation, I will never be far from a loving mother.

I'm posting some pictures of my favorite women at the retreat. Varshana Swami told me this weekend that people seem to have wavering feelings about New Vrindavan but when it comes to Mother Gopa, they all agree. The agreement is that Mother Gopa is one of the kindest, most generous, and humble women on the planet.


Young and old, the retreat reflected the eclectic group of women around the world who have taken to spiritual life for the benefit of themselves, their family, and for humanity at large.

I offer my respects to all the righteous women in this world holding up the very essence of feminine qualities: pure, self-less, unmotivated love and nurturing.

"The soul is of no sect, no party: it is, as you say, our passions and our prejudices, which give rise to our religious and political distinctions."
-Jane Austen

Gettin' personal.

My pops sent me this quote the other day...

"The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much , and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom."-George Carlin

Amen, brother. Basically, I feel like what it all boils down to is a
society drifting into the depths of impersonalism. What
attracted me to the Hare Krishna Movement was Srila
Prabhupada's message of personalism. Everyday, I recite a
prayer that glorifies Srila Prabhupada for delivering a message
to the western world, that is slowly liberating humanity from a
frigid ocean of vast impersonalism and voidism.

I feel like, anything I've ever been upset about can basically be
boiled down to this theory of impersonalism. The farther I am
removed from the land and tending a garden, the more my
relationship with Mother Earth dwindles, being hardly aware
of the subtle changes in the weather, the cycle of the moon, the
beauty of each vegetable. The less informed I am of my
community and the larger global community, the less I realize
how much people are suffering. Because I do not understand
the amount of resources it actually takes to manufacture all
products and the repercussions resulting from those extractions,
I rarely think about my consumption habits. The less time I
spend around cows and those who honor them, the more
detached I am from their suffering and the more I liberally
drink their precious offerings with little understanding that in

a short time their bodies will be slaughtered and butchered
alongside their fattened baby calves. In schools, we complain
about our children being just a number. In hospitals, we
complain about misdiagnosis because of the doctor's lack of
understanding our actual dis-ease. It's interesting that in western
medicine, the approach is to treat symptoms, not individuals.
Whereas, in eastern medicine, there is an understanding
that the same symptoms in two different people may have two
entirely different causes depending on the nature of the
individual's body.

It's just this whole idea that the less we know about
something and someone, the less we care about their
situation and suffering. But even more than that, the shallower
our relationships are. Srila Prabhupada came to the western
hemisphere to share the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita,
which at it's essence, decries that all living beings are eternal.
However, until we are purified and situated on a
platform of goodness to recognize and honor this fact, we will
endlessly and repeatedly be subjugated by the laws of nature.
Basically, what goes around, comes around. If you kill and
support the killing of others, you too will be killed, maybe not
this life, but possibly in the next. Just because the child doesn't
know the flame is hot, the child is still burned by the fire.
So basically intelligence impels us to inquire and learn the laws
of nature, question where human beings fit into this game,
and how to proceed from here. My suggestion, turn now to
chapter 3 of the Bhagavad Gita.

I had a nice realization
the other week. We
were celebrating Srila
Prabhupada's 42nd
anniversary of arriving
in America and in his
honor, the temple
planned a big Hari
Nam downtown. But
by the time Nisha got
home she was too
exhausted to get back
in the car and drive
another hour through
rush-hour DC traffic.
We brainstormed and
decided to have our
own celebration
around the apartment
complex instead. We grabbed the mridanga (drum),
kartals (hand cymbals), a picture of Srila Prabhupada,
some prasadam to pass out, and headed out into the parking
lot. We circled around then sat in the grass and lit a few candles.
All of a sudden mis hermanitas came over and started freaking
out, dancing, singing, clapping, "oh, this tastes sooo good",
"what is this drum called", "who is that beautiful man?".

Soon we invited everyone up to the apartment and passed out
the rest of Radharani's birthday cake and tea. The girls
adored the altar and tey all offered incense to the deities. Picking
out Krsna book immediately and commenting, "now that is one
book you don't just leave on the floor," they listened carefully
as I read aloud the first chapter.

The night was brilliant and my biggest realization was grassroots.
Think globally, act locally. I go downtown to distribute vegetarian
cookbooks to strangers, yet I've yet to go next door and offer
some delectable veggie goodness to my neighbors.

I once studied with a brilliant philanthropist, Gustavo Esteva, a
facilitator for indigenous rights movements in southern Mexico.
He published a book entitled, Grassroots Post-Modernism,
which highlights various successful social movements around the
world. What they all have in common is a concentration of energy
in localized, individualized, and personalized, grassroot efforts.

Please remind me of my impersonal behavior and tendencies.
Again, when it comes down to it. There are an infinite number
of relationships out there and souls to connect with. I guess this is
what gives me the greatest joy. Solid, honest, respectful and
eternal connections in this oh so temporary world.

On Judgement...

"Even the most learned man cannot understand the words, activities and symptoms of a person situated in love of Godhead."

*verse quoted from the Caitanya-caritamrita (Madhya 23.39) in The Seventh Goswami, a biography of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur

The Afterburn.

For all of you west coasters out there, LA stylee, a post-festival Burning Man party will be happening on October 13 from noon to midnight. Krishna Camp will be in attendance along with Lord Jagannath and his chariot. For directions to the festival click here.

Please contact Nitai and Mandali if you can help out with Krishna camp in any way: 347 409 3897