Kulapavana

if anything, it looks a lot more like MI5 job than Scotland Yard... possibly not so much that they did it themselves, but either knew about it and let it happen, or got some Arabs to do it for them, by pretending to be "alkaida" organizers. Entrapment is their favourite game: they will pretend to be alkaida to see if somebody will be willing to engage in terrorism - sometimes they will then arrest them, claiming to the stupid public: we have caught some terrorists!, and sometimes they will just let the plot be carried out... anyway... who knows?

It looks like Scotland Yard had advanced warning before the attack and even informed the Israelis about it. See the story here: http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=122098120&p=yzzx987xx

Bhakta Don Prabhu, dont waste too much time fighting the cheating religions of the Yavanas. fight them only if they attack you directly - even dung has it's benefits, everything exists for a reason... besides, the Yavanas will probably not see you as an authority on their scripture, but only as an agressor - and thus not be inclined to change. instead, study the wonderfull qualities of Sri Krishna and our tradition that leads towards Him directly. show people the higher taste, and they may follow.

"When the crane/yaksa (Lord Yamaraja in disguise) asked King yudhisthira, "what is the universe", the king replied, "Black space and nothing more."" I'm not sure if that is a right quote. Crane's questions were actually all riddles.

I can definitely see it from the Temple perspective. But... what would be the harm if such an important function and service was properly organized by Iskcon? Most people in that situation should be able to come up with the needed funds - it is the local organization that they require. It is only going to be more and more frequent problem in our society.

"The model itself I would not call fiction as I suspect you wouldn't really even. More like ideal but impractical for most in this particular social climate." I still consider it a fiction, because it has no basis in reality. Even in Vedic times they would get rid of the old cows by setting them free into the woods, where they had a pretty slim chance of surviving. And milk itself was quite scarce in general, as in the story of Asvatthama's childhood. As a boy, he never tasted milk, because they were very poor. Some other kids played a joke on him by giving him some white colored water. When Asvatthama danced with joy, happy that he finally tasted milk, the cruel kids just laughed at him. Seeing this, Dronacharya's heart broke, and he decided to become a paid teacher in the house of Kuru, so he can provide for his family... Anyway, you can call it an "impractical ideal" if you like - there is no harm in that - but trying to base your practical economic system on such ideas leads nowhere. Brahmanas can afford to be impractical, because they are maintained by others. but the kshatriyas who actually run the society do not have that luxury. And that is precisely why Manu Samhita places all governing functions in the hands of kshatriyas.

our perception of space is similar to the "Matrix" effect: the space is there, but what we see - is an ilusion created for us by the Master of the Universe. Thus each world (the one of ghosts, the one of men and the one of the demigods - Bhur, Bhuvah, and Svah) is kept separate.

"I don't recommend ways of producing milk or growing my own food since I am alifetime city dweller I would most likely starve. Your point is what exactly? That because most vegans don't grow their own food you can slaughter calves? That is not so bright." my point is, that people like you have no clue what it takes to produce your food, be it milk or grains. you folks would very quickly change your perspective after one season of growing your own eatables, fighting weeds, bugs, weather and animals. you have the luxury of living in the lala-wala land because somebody else handles the practicalities. it is nice that you do not use milk - I support you 100% there - but my objection goes a lot deeper, and relates to food production in general. the Iskcon model of milk production is just plain fiction - we tried, and we failed - not because we did not try hard enough, but because the model does not work. is the answer turning vegan? I guess it is one of the options.

vitamin B12 is synthesized by the microrganisms living in the intestines of vegetarians (both animals and humans)

Sometimes (usually?) devotees are very utopian in their armchair philosophies of life... I heartily recommend to all these avid supporters of "100%natural and karma free" ways to actually try and grow some food and produce some milk themselves, using the techniques they recommend. Sure we can quit using milk. What's next? Do you know how many bugs were killed to produce your granola bar? or your apple? tomato?

two things: 1.SP wanted his movement to be A LOT MORE than a collection of mathas. It is clear that he intended to form a functioning society of devotees. 2.In this case it is apparently an effort of an idividual. and as to prostitution - Vedic society was far more practical than an average Iskcon member can stomach, so let us leave it at that... /images/graemlins/wink.gif

"would it be pleasing to prabhupada if there was a bank where: Devotees could use a bank for projects like building temples, bbt and other projects etc to keep there money and borrowing from a bank which will give good terms to devotees." I'm sure it would be pleasing to SP. After all it is a part of varnasrama dharma development. It would provide good service and much needed employment for devotees. When I see devotees forced to work for karmis I'm saddened that as a movement we never created viable economic structures to employ our members... /images/graemlins/frown.gif A very good luck to you in this project! /images/graemlins/smile.gif

I know SP spoke many times about the fallacy of paper money and the need to base the system of exchange on silver and gold standard. Maharishi people experimented with their own currency and banking in europe, but I'm not sure how far it all went. you have to be cautious with things like that, or it will end in a big scandal, like with the Bengali Kartabhajas /images/graemlins/wink.gif

"We accept anothers obiesancies while we offer obiesancies back, knowing that only Sri Krsna is worthy of "Bhajanti"." it is kind of like saluting in the military: you salute the rank, not the person.

I seek information regarding the ritual of fire sacrifice in our Vaishnava tradition. Things like it's actual meaning, ways of performance, mantras chanted, etc.

as I said earlier, the descriptions of the Bhagavatam refer to a conceptual model of the universe showing proportional relationship between the planes of existence, not planets as they appear in our time-space continuum. also, terms "higher" or "lower" refer to the position in relation to the Garbhodaka Ocean, and not Earth as a planet. Remember: Pole Star (Dhruvaloka) is the "Up" direction with it's opposite being the Garbhodaka ocean. Sun, Moon and Earth (as part of the Jambudvipa) rotate in the space between these two. I think that what we see in our world as Sun and Moon are actually only small fragments of the Surya and Chandra planes of existence, just as Earth is only a small part of the Bhu-mandala plane of existence, with the rest of these planes of existence being beyond our sensory perception.

Varakh (Silver Foil) Do you know how the varakh on your sweets (mithai) is manufactured? As a child I remember always asking for those sweets that had silver foil on them. Even today children as well as adults go for varakh on the sweets. Its popular appeal has a stronger hold on people's mind, increasing the demand and there by it's supply. If people know the source and method of making it, I am sure they will never eat the silver-coated sweets again. Let us find out the procedure from the article written by Beauty Without Cruelty (BWC), India branch. We are thankful to them for this valuable information. If you look beyond the glitter of varakh, into the sheds where it is produced, and at the lives that are sacrificed to make this possible, you would think twice before buying that box of sweets topped with the precious silver foil! Silver foil, or varakh, as it is generally known in India, adds glitter to Indian sweets (mithai), supari (betel nut), paan (betel-leaf), and fruits. Also it is used in Ayurvedic medicines and on deities in many Jain temples. The silver-topped sweet is even served as prasad in temples and on auspicious and religious occasions. Varakh is also used in flavored syrups as in kesar (saffron) syrup. Several years ago, as suggested by BWC, Indian Airlines instructed their caterers to stop the use of varakh on sweets (mithai) served on board their flights. Today, many ask for sweets without varakh, having realized the cruelty involved in its preparation. According to a feature article in Business India, an astounding 275 tons of silver are eaten annually into foil for sweets and chyavanprash! That is a whopping 2,75,000 kilograms! (At the 45 present market rate that would cost a phenomenal Rs. 165 Crore or $ 40 million U.S. Dollars). Just how is varakh made and what is it that makes its preparation and consumption so sinful? Varakh is not derived from an animal source. However, a crucial material of animal origin, ox-gut, is used in its manufacture. This ox-gut is obtained from the slaughterhouse. In the by lanes of the villages of Ahmedabad (Gujarat state, India) and other cities, amidst filthy surroundings, placed between layers of ox-gut, small thin strips of silver are hammered to produce the glittering foil. The intestine (ox-gut), smeared with blood and mucus, is pulled out from the slaughtered animal by the butcher at the slaughterhouse, and sold for the specific purpose. Note that it is not a by-product of slaughter, but like everything else meat, hide, and bones are sold by weight. This is then taken away to be cleaned and used in the manufacture of varakh. The gut of an average cow, measuring 540 inches in length and 3 inches in diameter, is cut open into a piece measuring 540" x 10". From this, strips of 9" x 10" are cut to give approximately 60 pieces of ox -gut, which are then piled one onto another and bound to form a book of 171 leaves. Next, small thin strips of silver are placed between the sheets and the book slipped into a leather pouch (note that the use of leatheran animal product again). Artisans then hammer these bundles continuously for a day to produce extremely thin foils of silver of 3" x 5". The leather and ox-gut, being supple, can withstand the intense manual hammering for up to 8 hours a day till such time as the silver is beaten to the desired thickness. When ready, the foil is carefully lifted from between the leaves of ox -gut and placed between sheets of paper to be sold to the sweet makers (mithaiwallas). A booklet of 160 foils weighs approximately 10 grams and costs about Rs. 200 ($5.00). To make a single booklet of 171 sheets, the guts of 3 cows are used. And the yield per book is generally 160 foils of silver, the rest of which may be damaged or unfit for use. Thus one book, used on an average of 300 days of the year yields approximately 48,000 foils of silver which means that each ox-gut yields an estimated 16,000 foils. The leather used for the pouch to hold the book (made from oxgut), is cowhide or calf leather, and uses about 232 sq. inches of material. Assuming the size of an average cowhide to be 18 sq. ft or 2,600 sq. Inches, the yield per hide will be approximately 10 leather pouches. Usually 4 foils are used per kilograms (2.2 lbs.) of sweets and the ox-gut of one cow is used to produce foil for approximately 4,000 kilograms (9,000 lbs.) of sweets. It is estimated (by Surveys) that the average consumption of sweets by a middle class family of four in India is about 100 kilograms per year. Thus, an average middle class Indian family of four consuming approximately 100 kg of sweets per year for forty years consumes silver foil produced with the gut of 3 cows and one-tenth of a cowhide! India is not the only country where foil is made by such methods. In Germany, small-specialized enterprises produce gold leaf, which is beaten down to 1/10,000-millimeter thickness, for decorative and technical purposes by similar methods. The Jews use the gold foil for as much the same purposes, namely for food preparations, as it is in India. In India the 275 tons of silver that are beaten annually into varakh utilize intestines of 516,000 cows and calf leather of 17,200 animals each year. Therefore, we hope that someone; somewhere will develop an alternative process for the making of varakh without using ox -gut.

"His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest." oh... this is SO typical for these people /images/graemlins/wink.gif

yes it is all relative. I posted that diagram only to show the point of important differences between terms: "height" and "distance" that should not be confused.

is indeed 93,000,000 miles just as the spiritual knowledge in Bhagavatam needs to be properly understood from a spiritual scientist, the material knowledge in that scripture needs to be properly understood as well - from a person of great material understanding. it is not at all simple... even the demigods are sometimes baffled by the workings of the Universe

The Moon is 220,000 to about 252,000 miles from Earth. How it is measured? Here is one example: "Bouncing Lasers Off the Moon Their primary method will be something called "laser ranging," and it wouldn't be possible without the foresight of people like Kenneth Nordtvedt. In the 1960s, Nordtvedt, a physicist at Montana State University, came up with an intriguing idea. He reasoned that a series of reflectors on the surface of the moon could be helpful in determining the exact distance between the moon and the Earth. Light from a laser fired from the Earth could hit a reflector and bounce back. The time it took for the light to travel from Earth to the reflector and back would reveal the exact distance, or at least within a few inches, Nordtvedt argued. That would reveal much about the lunar orbit, and that data could in turn be used to test some of the tantalizing ideas in Einstein's theories. His idea was convincing enough that NASA sent three arrays of 100 to 300 prisms, called retroreflectors, to the moon during the Apollo program. The prisms reflect light back to its point of origin, and each array is about the size of a suitcase. Two other arrays were delivered to the moon by Soviet unmanned missions. The retroreflectors allowed scientists to pin down the distance to the moon to within about 10 inches by the early 1970s, and that number was reduced to less than an inch within a decade. More ‘Bullets’ for More Precision But that isn't good enough to carry out the kind of research that Murphy and his colleagues want to do. By using a laser system mounted on a 3.5-meter telescope at Apache Point, N.M., and equipped with a sophisticated array of detectors that can capture and isolate every photon of light that bounces back from the moon, Murphy hopes to get the number down well below a millimeter. The laser will blast a 1-billion-watt "bullet" of light at the moon 20 times every second. But the Earth's atmosphere will distort the beam once it leaves the telescope, so by the time it gets to the moon the beam will cover an area more than a mile wide. Murphy is hoping that at least one out of every 30 million photons hits a reflector and bounces back toward Earth. That would send about a billion photons back from each bullet. But by the time the reflected laser beam reaches Earth, it will have spread out to nearly 10 miles in diameter, so probably only about one out of 30 million reflected photons will actually be captured by the detectors. That data will be fed into a powerful computer, but all it will tell is the distance between the telescope and the reflector. Factoring in Swelling Earth, Atmospheres "The difficulty is in converting that into a useful number," Murphy says. What the scientists want to know is the distance between the center of the Earth and the center of the moon, and there are just a whole bunch of things that make that a difficult conversion. "The Earth swells about a foot every day, so you have to know where you are in that tidal cycle," Murphy says. "You have to know how much atmospheric delay is presented because light travels a little bit slower though air, so you better know how much atmosphere you're going through. When you have a high pressure system [in the atmosphere], the local crust is pushed down by the weight of the air." We're talking feet in some of these cases, and the scientists are thinking millimeters. But if they've done everything right, Murphy expects to get the measurement down to below a millimeter within the first minute of observation. Then he can get down to the real science. Challenging Einstein The foundation of Einstein's theory of General Relativity is the equivalence principal, which postulates "all types of mass, regardless of composition, will accelerate or fall at the same rate in a gravitational field," Murphy says. The measurements he hopes to collect should tell if the moon and the Earth fall toward the sun at the same rate, as Einstein predicted. If there's a difference in the rate between the two bodies, then something is really wrong with the equivalence principal. Beyond that, the laser ranging system will work sort of like a telescope, detecting virtually every object in the solar system on the basis of its effect on the orbit of the moon. "Even asteroids exert enough force on the moon that they should be detectable at the millimeter level," Murphy says. And eventually, if Murphy can keep the program running for four or five years, he might be able to determine if gravity weakens as the universe expands, a proposition that has tantalized some scientists for many years. So as a young man he stands on an interesting threshold. His experiment could turn up all sorts of surprises. "That's the exciting thing," he says. "Any time you probe to a new level of precision like this, you never know what monsters are going to rear their heads. Sometimes, monsters are a terrible thing that you don't want to deal with, and sometimes they are very interesting."

I know what you are saying... (sigh) I hate to say this (out of deep respect for SP), but it appears that there is some confusion in the translation and subsequent purports, where the terms "height" and "distance" are used interchangeably - that is most likely an error, because these two terms are not at all identical. just like the "anti-matter" controversy from "Easy Journey to Other Planets" - SP used the discovery of antimaterial particle to prove the existence of spirit soul... well, by most accounts this anti-matter is not spirit, but a peculiar form of material energy.

moon ---------------------- sun earth see? the moon is HIGHER then the sun but also CLOSER to earth than the sun. SP was not a supreme authority on Vedic cosmology. he was simply reading Bhagavatam descriptions and taking them in his own way.

the only true fact here is that SP accepted Jesus of Nazareth as a pure devotee. his temptation (and a lot of other things in the biblical record) may or may not be a fact. a lot of what passes as contemporary or historical christianity is not based on facts - you will see that if you study this subject matter even from christian masters

the current concept of Satan is basically a folklore thing. even Christian scholars have vastly different ideas in this field. ancient (pre-biblical) societies and beliefs were very different than most people think due to biblical brainwashing.