Krishna-shaktir astu te!

Dear Devotees,

Jaya Srila Prabhupada. On the last day of 2010, I wish you all a wonderful Krishna conscious 2011. For me, the greatest and most inspiring challenge in the coming year is to strengthen ISKCON in the western world.

When I joined the movement in 1969, ISKCON seemed like a North American movement with branches in Europe, Australia and East Asia.

In 1970 Srila Prabhupada dramatically established ISKCON in India. The movement also spread throughout East and Southeast Asia.

Prabhupada planted a transcendental seed in the Soviet Union which blossomed into a huge, powerful mission throughout Russia and other CIS countries.

I helped to expand the movement in Latin America in the mid 70′s and ISKCON is now well established throughout that region.

However it is ISKCON in India that has expanded beyond comparison. Of course, India has a huge, natural advantage. It is the land of Krishna. Even in America, ISKCON congregations in most large cities consist mainly of devotees from an Indian background. We find the same phenomenon in the UK and South Africa, and in most other countries that host a significant Indian diaspora.

This phenomenon is not so evident in most of Latin America, or in some parts of Europe, where there is a comparatively small Indian population.

Still, the massive expansion and unique wealth of many Indian devotees, both in India and other countries, presents an interesting challenge to the International Society for Krishna consciousness. Is ISKCON destined to be basically an Indian movement with branches in foreign countries? Or is it meant to be a truly international society that establishes the yuga dharma as a dominant spiritual process throughout the world?

In India, ISKCON’s influence at all levels of society is enormous. In America, and most European countries (England and Hungary might be exceptions) ISKCON’s national influence is insignificant.

Personally, I believe that ISKCON can fulfill Srila Prabhupada’s and Lord Caitanya’s vision only as a truly international society that presents Krishna consciousness as a non-sectarian, non-ethnic spiritual science. I learned this from Prabhupada hismelf. Thus it is the responsibility of those of us who serve Srila Prabhupada in the west to do all we can to reignite the fire of a powerful, relevant movement in our respective countries.

I find this vision, of reestablishing the full power and relevance of ISKCON in the west, to be a most inspiring challenge. It is to the fulfillment of this vision that I wish to dedicate myself in 2011. I invite all the devotees to share and serve this awesome vision.

Wishing you all a year of health, happiness and potent service in Lord Krishna’s divine mission, I invoke this blessing: Krishna-shaktir astu te!  May the force of Krishna be with you!

With best wishes,

Hridayananda das Goswami

The way I put it is sometimes it is not that God is playing like Krishna, Krishna is sorta like playing like God, doing the God thing because some people need it. But he comes to this world and says, “OK I’ll be the God of religion, do your thing”.

Purusottma means “the ultimate guy”. So here he is the Purusottma, Krishna- he is a person- and he thinks “OK I am going to come down to the material world, and be a FISH”, “I am going to be a tortoise.” – “I am going to be a HOG”- Its very far out. So look at that we are dealing with: Krishna. He is this incredible creative, supremely theatrical, far out; I’ll do anything if I feel like it, Supreme Personality of Godhead.

It’s not as if there is a God who plays as if he is a teenager. He actually is a teenager. Otherwise you’d be left with this absurd implication or entailment- this absurd notion that Krishna is different from his body. The absurd notion that there is some essence of Krishna- that there is some divine essence of Krishna that is different from Krishna himself. That this essence of Krishna is in the body of this far out teenager. As we know Krishna is not different. This is in fact what Prabhupada says- he criticized that Dr. Radhakrishna, the highly learned clueless scholar- who said that- this referrers Man-manavo, it doesn’t refers to Krishna but to the unborn essence within Krishna. The idea there is some essential God that plays like Krishna is not our philosophy. Our Philosophy that Krishna really is God. Whether you like it or not- God really is a teenager. Live with it. That’s Krishna. He’s our guy. He’s young, He’s playful- that’s really him. It’s the other stuff that he is doing for our benefit. It is like He is agreeing to be the object of religion.

As far as I can understand there is no religion in the spiritual world. There are no temples. They don’t have formal religion in Krishnaloka, where people are attending services. They don’t practice anything. That’s the whole point. When you have the whole universe where no one is practicing anything, there is no formal religion. Religion as we know it is an instrument given by God- for our purification. Sadhana is religion. Religion means you practice religion, that’s sadhana-bhakti. But when you have a world where no one is practicing Sadhana-bhakti; no one is practicing anything. Everyone is just following their Raga.

“Cinema Songs” is a very Indian expression. In England do they say “Cinema songs”? No it’s an Indian term, Cinema songs, from Bollywood… 1) Did Prahlad millions of years ago on another planet say cinema songs? That’s one question, the next question is 2) Does Prabhupada believe in a serious historical sense that Prahlad said Cinema songs? I don’t think he did… I think he is being kinda of tongue in cheek. Yesterday we were discussing the Indian sense or lack of sense of history, if you look at the Pre-Newtonian pre- Baconian (Pre-bacon, Sir Francis Bacon) look at the notion of historiography, What did people think about the writing of history before the scientific revelation? History was not the historical science, the notion that history should try to be a real science, and it’s something universities will spend their lives debating; which is essentially trivia. This is after Newton- everyone wanted to be the Newton of their field… Like I want to be the Newton of social studies, I want to be the Newton of history; I want to be the Newton of… so everyone wanted to be the Newton of their field…

This notion this notion of the thoroughly scientific historiography is modern. If you look at say, Virgil’s Aeneid which I think is a good example. Civilization. A Trojan prince somehow escaped the Trojan War which the Trojan’s lost, and somehow sailed around to North Africa. Then had an aborted disastrous love affair with some African queen that never got over it. And then finally came to Italy, and founded Rome. And it was all very glorious, there were all kinds of harbingers, prophetic signs, of this most glorious event of the founding of Rome. Is this real history, is this what really happened? No. There is no evidence that this really happened, but for the Roman people, it is like- this is so cool. This is such a great story, lets just run with this one because there was not this anxiety about we need to know exactly what happened, we needed to know every last little detail. They just didn’t have that anxiety. History was seen as a narrative art whose main purpose was to convey wisdom. So for the Romans I guess the highest wisdom was the glory of Rome.

Again, if you look at the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer- or the song of the Volga boatmen of Scandinavia it’s not an anxiety to scientifically understand the past and then preserve it. That’s not what they were doing. They always say you have to know history or otherwise you are doomed to repeat it. The historical lessons you really need to learn are the big ones it’s not in all the little details, it’s just the big lessons- for example- Hitler. That is you defeat a country in war and then impose upon the unreasonable sanction so they are driven to desperation you’re probably going to produce a radical enemy in the future. There are like certain basic lessons that you are going toned to learn. My point is that Prabhupada had the pre-Newtonian sense of historiography. Where there are certain basic facts, you’d have to get right- because it is a sacred lesson of Krishna, but the details are kind of, you can play with them. I think Prabhupada’s pre-Newtonian sense of Histiography is related to the fact that history is meant for wisdom. It is related to his translation style.

“There is some truth in that Monty Python movie- The Holy Grail- where king Arthur sees the little hinge jawed God in the box that appears in the sky and Arthur looks away, God says “what are you doing?” Arthur replies- “I am averting my eyes, my Lord.” And God says, “will you stop groveling? I hate it when you grovel.” You know Prabhupada kinda said the same thing. There is a story in the Nectar of Devotion where Krishna says to one of his own sons, “Quit diverting you eyes. You can look at me”. Or maybe Monty Python read the Nectar of Devotion. Think of it. There is a tendency, in a lower state of religiosity, to take everything in the pompous formal awe-struck way.”

       
You can watch footage here:

http://videos.nola.com/nola/2008/01/krewe_of_barkus_2008.html

My advice for anyone who decides to attend this event next year… most dogs are short- So get there early so you can actually see the parade and watch where you step.

They guy I sat next to on the plane last night- gave me a strong warning. He works for the sheriff’s office a couple of counties over. He said this year they are calling in the national guard and the city has put up observation towers so they can monitor the criminal activities during Mardi Gras. He mentioned some murder, mugging, and rape statistics and then he told me where I should go for a tasty doughnut like breakfast food.