Archive for December, 2007
Monday, December 31st, 2007
appreciation makes perfect.
One morning silence overcame me as I was taking my breakfast. This beautiful painting of Lord Buddha captured my eyes. I was blessed with the vision of Lord Buddha as being a Person who was most contemplative and compassionate. My gaze could not be removed from His face. I saw the face of Lord Krishna, Lord Chaitanya, Srila Prabhupada and my own personal spiritual guide. I began to cry as I remembered a lecture about the Lords Avatars. In that lecture Lord Krishna’s most compassionate self was glorified as being a Personality who would give up the opulences of the spiritual world and accept the clothes of a mendicant just to deliver the fallen souls.
Lately I have been meditating upon Krsna Consciousness being the path of appreciation. We don’t love Krsna. We didn’t do anything to deserve Him. Often we didn’t even ask Him to be in our lives. Some how or another He is there. The goal of every activity possible in this existence is Lord Krishna. Is there anything left for us to do? The perfection of any activity lives with us now. What is there left to do? All that we can do is simply perform all of our activities with the mood of appreciation not with the aim of attaining something. Krsna only lacks the love of our human hearts. Hearts which He knows are filled with so many unwanted things. Yet the Lord eagerly desires for you to notice Him. He knows you don’t love Him. He knows how attracted you are to this wonderful world and how busy you are trying to live. Compassionately, His love for you is not dependent up on your reciprocation. Accepting His love and trying to show your appreciate for His love is our life. It is a Krsna Conscious life and as repeated to me again and again this summer, “Enthusiasm in one’s service is the display of one’s intent to Love Krsna.”
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Monday, December 31st, 2007
Splitting Maul On Transplant List
The wood splitting maul I am using is on the handle transplant list.
Fortunately, due to an alert from an early warning detection system ( my eyes) I already have on hand a new handle and an extra wedge in case I can’t recycle the one that is currently securing the handle in the head.
The […]
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Sunday, December 30th, 2007
somethings in life are useful.
In one dirgha breath I say…….
Today, in two different confirmations, I realized that anything that happened to me in life will be referenced in service. Specifically as a “teacher” any attempts for purification or any struggles I travel through will be referenced to assist others who go through he same difficulties. I am now more eager to conquer those most formidable enemies, push my edges, break through barriers, and to compassionately self observe myself so I can have the realizations to share with others on the same path. You know, like that Gandhi story about the sugar, the boy, and the weeks worth of time before Mahatma said, “boy, stop eating sugar.”
Today, Naren Prabhu, Chase Prabhu and I went to Sri Venkateshvara temple in Pittsburgh and had special darshan of the Lord’s flower outfit. I spent alot of time with Sri Andal devi. She was easily approachable. This is a photo which I illegally took to show all of you. This is the month where she is culturally honored. 
http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/alvars/andal/
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Sunday, December 30th, 2007
New Year’s Eve Party Update
The Temple has canceled their New Year’s Eve Party.
Thakur and Tommy don’t have a gig that night so sounds like they will be here with instruments.
Please park in the field on the other side of my wood pile. If you do end up parking along the lane, it is important to keep […]
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Sunday, December 30th, 2007
It’s a Circle, Honest!
Explanation
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Saturday, December 29th, 2007
Flying Spaghetti Monster Creation Theory Denied By School Board
By BILLY TOWNSEND The Tampa Tribune
Published: December 22, 2007
LAKELAND - Public floggings hurt, even when administered by satirical sacred noodles.
Ask the Polk County School Board. The panel made news last month when five of its seven members declared a personal belief in the concept of intelligent design, the religiously based explanation of the development of […]
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Friday, December 28th, 2007
Pretend I just called you and you ask how I’m doing and I blurt out with an uncontrolled tongue….
Ive been in New Vrindaban for a week. Seven days in New Vrindaban makes one weak. I have not eaten one fresh vegetable or fruit since Ive been here. No salads nothing alive(if you are what you eat does that make me dead or fried). Ive eaten more wonderfully fried and sugary delectables than I ever could imagine. Not because I am a glutton but because those are my options. Fasting seems like a wonderful alternative. Water is the freshest thing I get here. Its bottled and shipped in from another state. I did get the inside scoop though, Jaya Prabhupada our resident cowboy has an amazing spring on his land. He is going to start refilling my bottles. I don’t mean to sound negative but its true. I feel sleep deprived and physically tired. Waking up at 4, dressing the deities, morning program, yoga, cooking rajbhoga, and eating lunch. By 1 pm I’m a dead guy. Then I have to try to chant my rounds, work on various projects which need to get done asap, reading and preparing lectures, and talking to every friend devotee which I haven’t seen in a month or longer and each asks, “how are you doing? you look tired.” Then somehow or another if there is any energy left in this little body I put my ipod in my ears and start to sweep and mop the hallways. Then between 10:30pm and midnight I lay my head on my yoga mat and try to sleep. Today I woke up for mangal aarti but didn’t go down stairs. I just hid in my room and chanted not feeling up to playing mridanga and singing any songs. I didn’t leave the ashram until 12:30 when I went to see the cows and wash my clothes. I took pictures of potential spots for the desired Yoga studio and analyzed the possibilities of converting the Santee House into a sustainable eco house and cafe. Then I ate really spicy pasta, hung my clothes on the line, spoke with Gauranga Kishore Prabhu who had great news for me from Mumbai, taught Kamalavati how to edit movies(she did a great job!), ate some mahaprasad brownies and cashews with Soma Prabhu, mopped and swept the hallways(hope no one slips and dies), now I’m speaking to you. The conch shell is about to blow and I should go since I havent attended any temple functions today. Im not the best example wearing my dickies and hoodie, but it is a sure way to get out of having to give class to our guests when you are not in the mood of being a sadhu(or pretending to be).
by the way, Sri Sri Radha Vridaban Chandra are so beautiful they are waiting for you to come and see them.
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Friday, December 28th, 2007
“The Spiritual Athlete in an Orange Robe” by Kabir
The spiritual athelete often changes the color of his clothes,
and his mind remains gray and loveless.
He sits inside a shrine room all day,
so that the Lord has to go outdoors and praise the rocks!
Or he drills holes in his ears, his beard grows
enormous and matted,
people mistake him for a goat…
He goes out into […]
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Thursday, December 27th, 2007
An Expert Presentation about Your Life!
http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html
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Thursday, December 27th, 2007
Bhumi Part 2
Bhumi’s excursion yesterday went very smoothly. A lot more smoothly then I was even praying for. It was very easy to sneak Bhumi out of the herd before they noticed. When Valerie arrived I had Bhumi tied up at the end of the lane by the barn happy eating a bale of second cutting hay. Valerie is the very nice lady who hauled us and Jaya to Columbus, Ohio for his surgery. This time Valerie brought her youngest son, who is a very nice boy.
All we had to do was hook up the trailer to her one ton pick-up truck and then load Bhumi. Luckly, I remembered how to do the hook up correctly. At first Bhumi did not want to get into the trailer, but she did want to finish that bale of second cutting. So, she finally got in and we were off to see the vet out in St. Clairsville at Mr. Young’s farm. Once we started driving she settled down and watched the countryside go by. It only took us about an hour to reach St. Clairsville which is a lot better then 3 ½ to 4 hours to Columbus where we had to take Jaya for his operation.
Dr. Moore was waiting for us at the turn off to the farm and he led the way to the barn. By this point, Bhumi wanted out and she came out very easily. Now the tricky part was getting her into the stockade. The opening for the chute was very narrow and at a weird angle so Dr. Moore opened up the side of the chute for her. I walked in first and Bhumi followed me right in. At the end I had to walk out, angle her head and horns, and not let her body out. Dr. Moore then closed the hydraulics of the chute so that only part of her neck with her head and horns were though and the rest of her body was in the chute. This would make it harder for her to move and easier to operate on her eye. The first thing the Vet did was to give her a general pain killer. He then took off her halter and lead rope and put his on Bhumi, and then he tied that to the side of the stockade so it will be somewhat easier to keep her head steady. She felt the general anesthesia very fast; you could tell she was going into la la land. He then shaved around her eye. The cancer she had was very fast growing and had grown a lot since he saw her 2 ½ weeks before. It was growing on her eyelid, in the eyelid, in the corner of her eye and behind the eye.
Bhumi was sedated nicely so Dr. Moore started doing the shots in a circle around her eye and all of us were feeling woozy. I was standing on one side of her out of the vet’s path and Valerie was standing on the other side of her. We were both talking to her and trying to keep her calm and steady. Chaitanya Bhagavat was standing by the control panel for the hydraulics. He job was to throw the switch and release the hydraulics in case she went down on her knees. If she went down with the hydraulics closed, she could badly injure herself. We were really lucky she did not go down and the operation only took 45 minutes from beginning to end.
After he was finished sewing up her eye, Dr. Moore told me I could untie her and take his halter off. I put ours back on and we walked her out of the stockade and back to the trailer for the ride home. Bhumi was moving very slowly as if she had a hangover. It was easier to load her into the trailer this time. She immediately had a couple of mouthfuls of hay. I settled up with the vet, it cost a little more then the original quote due to the advancement of the cancer. He had to take more of the eye area out then planned. Then we headed home.
Bhumi was moving around most of the way home. You could feel it in the truck when she was moving. Valerie and I would look at each other and say there she goes again. Once we got home she was fighting to get out of the trailer. I had to calm her down somewhat so that I could untie her. No way was I just going to unhook her halter and let her out in that mood after her having surgery. Once that was done she literally jumped out of the trailer and started walking really fast up the lane and past the big barn. All of the cows were really excited and happy to see her. They started mooing and walking parallel to us. We put her in half of the geriatric barn that was reserved for her. This way, she is separate but still with the herd. We did not want any of the cows to accidentally bump her eye area.
Bhumi immediately went to the gate that looks out into the silo pad area and into the big barn. She was not happy at all and very upset. Then a really sweet thing happened. Jaya came over and touched her nose. It was like they were communicating and she immediately calmed and settled down. They stayed like that for about 5 minutes. Now what really makes this sweet is that they normally have nothing to do with one another. They don’t hang out with each other at all, she has a higher standing in the herd then he does. Throughout the day either Jaya would be standing right next to her at the gate or other cows would be standing next to her or touch noses with her. It really touch’s your heart to see how much they care and are concerned about one another’s well being and state of mind and health.
Today Bhumi is doing well, eating hay, drinking water, and resting. I tried to give her pain killers but so far she does not want any. I will try again later today when I check on her again.
Submitted by Lakshmi Devi
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Thursday, December 27th, 2007
Thomas Merton’s Bhagavad Gita Essay
As even casual readers of my blog will have noticed, I am a fan of Thomas Merton. As a Trappist monk, he lived the Vaisnava lifestyle in the West, and had a lot of spiritual insight. Although in the past I have read some of his books, my study of him now consists of […]
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Wednesday, December 26th, 2007
Entire Blogosphere Stunned By Blogger’s Special Weekend Post
From The Onion.
NEW YORK—In what is being called a seminal moment in Internet history, a rare weekend post by 25-year-old blogger Ben Tiedemann on his website bentiedemanntellsall.blogspot.com rocked the 50 million-member blogosphere this Saturday. The landmark post, which updated nearly every member of the global online community on the shelf Tiedemann was building, was linked […]
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Wednesday, December 26th, 2007
My India Diary-Part 5
Day 11 Vrndavana 12/16Our Braj Mandala Parikrama countunied under the able guidance of HG Devananda Pandit Prabhu (”The last man should be first!”) as we visited various sacred sites in Nandagram and Barsana. The reality of how fortunate we are ca…
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Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
Bhumi part 1
Bhumi, Christmas Day 2007Since the vet came up to see Radharani, I have been trying to coordinate getting the operation done for Bhumi. I finally got it worked out with the vet and Valerie, the lady who hauled us for Jaya’s surgery. The operation is set for December 26, 2007. For the last week I have been trying to anticipate any possible problems and their solutions that may arise. Also, I have to make sure I have everything ready when Valerie gets here tomorrow morning to pick us up. Dr. Moore has arranged that we are going to use another farm’s barn and stockade in St. Clairsville, Ohio which is about 45 minutes to an hour away. He decided on that place because he felt that the stockade is going to be big enough for Bhumi and her horns. She is very proud of her horns and does not like for them to be messed with or touched.
Before tomorrow morning I need to finish getting the inside of our cow trailer ready for Bhumi and divide up the inside of the geriatric barn so she can have one half of it. Right now Gita is in there with Asha, Shyama, and Dwadasi. Once the surgery is done we do not want Bhuni’s eye area to get accidentally knocked by any of the other cows. So Bhumi will be getting the smaller side of the geriatric barn all to her self for a couple of months. We are lucky it is winter time as there are no flies.
I am praying I will remember how to hitch up the trailer. In the past, I have helped Dad do it. This excursion is going to be hard since Dad is working in the mall this Christmas season out in California. But it has to be done and it has to be done now. The cancer growth is really growing fast in poor Bhumi’s eye so I am just going to have to suck it up and deal with it. I get sick at the sight of blood and for half of Jaya’s surgery I had my head between my knees. I am not going to have the luxury of being able to do that this time. Most likely I will have to be the one to keep Bhumi’s head under control so I am going to be right up there in the middle of the whole surgery. So everyone out there in cyber-world, please pray for Bhumi and I that we both come out of this in good condition.
Submitted by Lakshmi Devi
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Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
Christmas Eve Choices
The choices were watch the San Diego Chargers play the Denver Broncos or go to Tejo’s house and hang out with devotees I have known for over thirty years and their kids whom I have watched grow up. We chose the latter.
Others were there as well, including a friend of Marken’s from his middle […]