Gauracandra

Its none of my business, but that national anthem I think is just perpetuating a subservient position to the Indian people. A national anthem in praise of a British King? Is it loved by the Indian people? If so, then keep it. If not, then get rid of it.

New Zealand's farmers have criticised a proposed tax on the flatulence emitted by their sheep and cattle. The move is part of the Wellington government's action to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Scientists estimate that methane emitted by farm animals is responsible for more than half of the country's greenhouse gases. Flatulence from cows, sheep and other ruminants is a serious environmental problem, accounting for about 15% of worldwide emissions of methane - one of the most potent of greenhouse gases. This is another example of the government's desire to act in the public interest but expecting rural New Zealand to pay for its largesse Tom Lambie Federated Farmers President Last year New Zealand signed up to the Kyoto Protocol, and agreed to reduce production of such gases. The proposed flatulence tax is expected to raise NZ$8.4m a year ($4.9m) from next year. Click here to see a graphic showing how cows will be taxed The money is be used to fund research on agricultural emissions. However New Zealand farmers argue that taxpayers should pay for the research, because reducing the emissions benefits everyone. "This decision is yet another example of the government's desire to act in the wider public interest but expecting rural New Zealand to pay for its largesse," Federated Farmers President Tom Lambie said. Sheep, cattle, goats and deer produce large quantities of gas through belching and flatulence, as their multiple stomachs digest grass. Ruminants are responsible for about 25% of the methane produced in Britain. In countries with a large agricultural sector, the proportion is much higher. In New Zealand, farm animals produce 90% of methane emissions.

The lady behind Roe vs. Wade is now officially requesting that the Supreme court overturn that decision in light of new evidence about the nature of when & how life begins. I saw an interview with her, and didn't realize that she never actually went through with the abortion. In the end she carried the child to full term and then gave it up for adoption. Anyways, these next stats come from Planned Murder - I mean Parenthood, so take them a bit with a grain of salt. I don't believe the last one that says that 43% of all women will have an abortion. But I figured it might add to the discussion. Fast Facts: U.S. Abortion Statistics Tuesday, June 17, 2003 The following are some statistics about abortion in America: Of the 1.6 million abortions performed in the U.S. each year, 91 percent are performed during the first trimester (12 or fewer weeks' gestation); 9 percent are performed in the second trimester (24 or fewer weeks' gestation); and only about 100 are performed in the third trimester (more than 24 weeks' gestation), approximately .01 percent of all abortions performed. Approximately 1.5 million U.S. women with unwanted pregnancies choose abortion each year. Most are under 25 years old and unmarried. Women who are separated from their husbands and poor women are more likely to choose abortion than other women. More than two-thirds of the women who seek abortions have jobs. Nearly one-third are in school. More than two-thirds plan to have a child in the future. Approximately 6 million women in the U.S. become pregnant every year. About half of those pregnancies are unintended. Either the woman or her partner did not use contraception or the contraceptive method failed. Each year more than one million U.S. teenagers become pregnant — one in nine women aged 15-19 and one in five who are sexually active. In 1988, the teenage pregnancy rate was 113 per 1,000 women aged 15-19. The rate was 74 per 1,000 among those aged 15-17. 50 percent of teenage pregnancies conceived in 1987 resulted in a birth, 36 percent in an abortion, and an estimated 14 percent in miscarriage. The number of abortions for every 100 live births showed a gradual decline since 1980 (35.9) to 1992 (33.5). The number of legal abortions increased slightly from 1995 (at 1,210,883) to 1996 (at 1,221,585). This is an increase of 0.89 percent. Since the national population increased by about 0.92 percent from mid-1995 to mid-1996, the abortion per-capita rate has decreased slightly. CDC figures for 1995 show that 20 percent of women having abortions are in their teens; 33 percent are ages 20 to 24, and 47 percent are ages 25 or older. Eighty percent of women having abortions are single; 60 percent are white; 35 percent are black. Eighty-two percent of the women having abortions are unmarried or separated. Almost half of American women (43 percent) will have an abortion sometime in their lifetime.

Thank you for that Russian website as it has pictures of two of the most beautiful deities in the world that I have ever seen:

I had a friend who once made a humorous/interesting comment about this painting. He said it was a very American painting of Radha & Krsna, where Krsna is like the captain of the football team and Radha was the head cheerleader. It was meant in a very good way. I can really see his point. It is very beautiful but also there is a real American sensibility to it.

This week’s Srila Siddhasvarupananda television program is a question and answer session on reincarnation. Srila Siddhaswarupananda: This will be our concluding program on reincarnation. I know that in this seminar we haven’t covered all aspects of this topic since it is a very big subject. But if any of you have questions please ask them. Audience Member: I was wondering about ghosts. Srila Siddhaswarupananda: A ghost is a person like you except they only have a subtle material body and lack a gross physical body. A person is neither the gross nor subtle material body, but the spirit soul within. Why a person becomes a ghost is also a long subject. A person may become a ghost if they commit suicide or die on drugs. If they die before their body was meant to die then they will hover around in a subtle material body until a new body is ready for them. Ghosts still have material desires but have no facility to engage those desires. They want to taste but have no tongue. Because of this they will often try to inhabit the bodies of others in order to experience this enjoyment. Audience Member: If a person experiences a dream in this life does that mean it comes from another life? Also, what about déjà vu? Srila Siddhaswarupananda: Dreams are a glimpse of past experiences. [He then quotes a verse from Srimad Bhagavatam, the meaning of which is that what we imagine, we are only able to imagine because we have experienced it before]. Lets say you have a song in your mind, perhaps some rock & roll song, or some sales jingle. The only way it got there is by you having experienced it. A lot of people have dreams of flying over mountains and valleys. The feeling is so real. You are in fact flying. How can you experience this? It is possible because you have flown before. Perhaps you were a bird. You re-experience something you have engaged in before. Your mind may also combine different experiences. You may have experienced gold, and seen a mountain, and then in a dream you see a gold mountain. This is also based on experience. Audience Member: I understand how higher forms of life can go down to lower forms, but how do lower forms rise to higher forms of life? Srila Siddhaswarupananda: In the human form of life man has a particular consciousness and as such is responsible for his actions. But not every species of life is responsible for their actions. Animals simply are pulled by the modes of material nature. They are given certain kinds of bodies to engage in various activities. There is an automatic progression for these animals to go from lower to higher material bodies. There are then different animals that act as jumping off points to human life. From the monkey one can take a human form in the mode of ignorance. From the lion one can take a human form in the mode of passion. And from the cow one can take on a human form in the mode of goodness. But the human form is the take off point. With this form, we are given full facility to inquire into the absolute truth. Who am I? Why am I here? What is my relationship with God? The human form is judged based on his actions. But even if you don’t succeed in transcending the wheel of birth and death, still you can take to the human form of life again. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna is asked about what happens to the unsuccessful transcendentalist. Such a person will be born into a very wealthy family, or into another family of transcendentalists. And from there they have another chance to inquire into the absolute truth. Earlier in the seminar we discussed how material desires and karmic reaction lead to reincarnation. However, if you develop love for God you will break out of this cycle. God will give you what you want. There is no way we can discuss the whole subject of Bhakti yoga in this short period of time. But I will briefly summarize. If you have material desires then you need to be purified. If you are dirty, you can’t just scrub the dirt and hope to get clean. You need a cleansing agent. For a person whose heart is covered by material attachments, whose dormant love for God is covered, the cleansing agent is God Himself. If you can make a connection with Him then you will be purified. He descends in this world in His Holy Names (this is the primary method), in the deity form, in scripture, and through his teachers. Since He is all pure He is all purifying. If you hear the names of God, sing the names of God, meditate on the form of God, hear from His servants, and place your whole body in connection with God, then you will cultivate this love for God. Our institute, the Science of Identity, exists for this purpose, to help you cultivate love for God. That is why we are putting on these television seminars. Thank you very much.

The only one I know of is carrots. I'm pretty sure its true and not just a myth.

About the Neanderthal. That WAS the theory, that man evolved from the Neanderthal. But lately, with DNA evidence, they are saying that the Neanderthal was a separate species, that lived beside man and then died out. There was no breeding. So all those years in school where we had to memorize the stages of the evolution of man, I was learning what they now say is false. Man did not evolve from the Neanderthal. Now not only are they missing the missing link, they are missing the link before the missing link. Pretty soon the whole chain is gonna fall apart.

This guy is just a kook. I have no doubt he is not from Iskcon, but rather an individual who wants to post something stupid as if it came from an Iskcon member. As Guruvani rightly points out, no one in Iskcon says this. Its just classic flame bait. Best to ignore it.

Yes, they are supposed to be vegetarian. However, I think they came to realize this was a great hinderance to getting people to join their church. As such, they have kind of lowered the standards. Most members say it is best to be vegetarian, even if they themselves aren't. Some progress is better than none.

You could try: Since you are superior for doing bhajan, then do it, and stop wasting my time.

I would suggest you go and purchase the book "Darwin's Black Box". Its very readable. If I had to summarize his main point it would be as follows: In order for a single trait to occur it requires an exact sequence of events to happen on the molecular level. Now evolutionary theory holds that changes occur slowly over thousands of years until you get a beneficial evolutionary trait. Now suppose it required a molecular sequence of ABCDE in order for blood to clot. If the body "evolved" the sequence A in the first 1000 years and then C in the next 1000 years, it would be useless. Why? Because the blood clotting sequence requires an entire sequence ABCDE in order to work. It is ALL or NOTHING. Now according to the rules of evolution itself, if the body is engaging in inefficient activities, those activities, for energy conservation, will evolve away. In other words, if my body is producing A & C, and this has no benefit, I can't very well tell my body "Now hold on one second, just wait another 8,000 years and I will then have the sequence for B, D, & E and man wait until your blood can clot, it will be really useful." No. The body would select out these useless sequences, and I'd be left with nothing. Now it gets even more complex. Because if there is a slight incorrect mistake your blood will either turn into a solid block of gunk, or remain thin. There are a million ways to do something wrong, and only a few ways to do something right. So most mutation is actually not useful. You get things like Sickle Cell Anemia, Cancer, etc.... The sequence has to be perfect in order to work. Another level then to look at is how many things we have. Its not just that we have the ability to clot blood. How did eye sight evolve? What would be the point of evolving eye sight over millions of years, if during that whole time you couldn't see anything. If you were to take all the functions of the body, each and every one had to have "evolved". Each one had to have gone through the same problem of having the right ABCDE sequence. And yet we find them all in one package. Lately, the scientific community has been quietly changing their tune because of this significant problem. Instead of gradual evolution, they now speak of giant leaps in evolution that occur every few thousand years. You don't hear much about this, because they want to pretend its been their view all along. Now instead of slowly evolving sequence ABCDE, they say one morning you have no sequence to clot blood, the next day by a "leap of evolution", voila you have ABCDE and you now have a genetically superior advantage, which then keeps going. Anyways, check out the book. It gives lots of examples.

Guarantee you they can't find one /images/graemlins/smile.gif Just watch them go "Uh, uh, uh, uh," /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Looks like no Triple Crown this year. It was a good race with Funny Cide in a good stride, but he didn't keep up at the very end.

The Belmont will be raced soon. No betting here, but it is fun to watch horse racing. Funny Cide has the chance to go for the first Triple Crown in the last, I believe, 25 years. Reminds me of a "Memories" story. Srila Prabhupada asked "What is the most beautiful animal?" and a devotee responded "The cow is the most beautiful animal.No" Srila Prabhupada replied "The horse is the most beautiful animal."

Terrorist: "Uh... God? What are these?" God: "These are your 72 raisins for blowing yourself up." Terrorist: "Do'h!!!"

Here is a poll so people can vote: <FORM METHOD=POST ACTION="http://www.audarya-fellowship.com/dopoll.php"><INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="pollname" VALUE="1054875154Gauracandra"> How do you like this poem? <input type="radio" name="option" value="1" />1 <input type="radio" name="option" value="2" />2 <input type="radio" name="option" value="3" />3 <input type="radio" name="option" value="4" />4 <input type="radio" name="option" value="5" />5 <input type="radio" name="option" value="6" />6 <input type="radio" name="option" value="7" />7 <input type="radio" name="option" value="8" />8 <input type="radio" name="option" value="9" />9 <input type="radio" name="option" value="10" />10 <INPUT TYPE=Submit NAME=Submit VALUE="Submit vote" class="buttons"></form>

The Conch is I think one of the best parts of deity worship. If you think about it, its pretty odd yet beautiful when it is blown. I like it best when it is a calm, constant sound.

I have a book called The color Guide to Vrindavan. If you want I'll scan the map that is enclosed. However, it might be a bit difficult as it is very large fold out. So it would have to come in pieces. I can't do it right away, but perhaps on the weekend.

The woman who was at the center of Roe vs. Wade (the U.S. Supreme Court abortion decision) today is prolife. What happened as I recall, she had two daughters afterwards. When they grew up and found out that they could have been aborted and that their sibling was aborted, they disowned their mother. The mother after much introspection became a born again Christian and now is anti-abortion. Pretty interesting.

So this raises the question of what would be an appropriate welfare system for society. I believe our current social welfare system masks the true harm of various activities. As such, the culture changes to view those activities as "not so bad". Its like, if you put some form of anesthetics in your hand, and then put your hand in a hot fire. All of a sudden the flesh burns but you feel no pain. You would be mistaken to then assume that fire wasn't damaging. In the U.S. we have literally spent trillions of dollars on the "War on Poverty" and during the same time period we have seen a steady (and directly correlated) rise in illegitimacy (one example). Today the culture doesn't view illegitimacy as being "all that bad". Why? Because no one directly feels its effects, certainly not to the extent that the damage it creates. Pooled money from "wealthy" people is taken bit by bit, and then transfered to those who are in need. A person can have a child out of wedlock, and while it may not be easy, the damage this causes is masked by some mysterious cash that comes from no one in particular. Now suppose just for the sake of argument, you removed all social welfare benefits today (not that I'm recommending this). What you would immediately see would be a level of pain and suffering among certain groups on a level most I think would be surprised. Why surprised? Because the damage was there all along but it was being masked. All of a sudden the direct results of bad behavior would be directly felt in those individual communities. Immediately I believe there would be a radical shift in the culture to the right. All of these communities would immediately say "Don't have sex outside of marriage. Get your education and ring on your finger first." Illegitimacy would become stigmatized again. On the other side, if money were left in the churches themselves (rather than the government) then these institutions could assist the poor, and give a good message as well. Right now the check comes with no expectations of changes in behavior. A religious organization will give a message along with the assistance needed. This would strengthen the participation of religion in our communities (notice that the most socialist societies are also the most atheistic, coincidence? Nope.). So what are your guys thoughts on what the proper spiritual welfare system should be?

Keep playing the video games. Don't worry about it. If the worse you do is play video games, then you are a very fine individual. Work on the big ticket items first, and then whittle down to the smaller, more innocuous ones.

Keep playing the video games. Don't worry about it. If the worse you do is play video games, then you are a very fine individual. Work on the big ticket items first, and then whittle down to the smaller, more innocuous ones.

This week’s Srila Siddhaswarupananda television program deals with life & death. Audience Member: I recently heard an interview with Dr. Christian Bernard. He was recommending that people with terminal illnesses take large overdoses of drugs because life at that point is meaningless. Srila Siddhaswarupananda: Why is it meaningless? They say it is meaningless because the pain is greater than the pleasure. Therefore the body becomes meaningless. If the vehicle for sense pleasure becomes damaged such that it can no longer have pleasure then why live? You might as well just die. This is a logical conclusion if you believe that the purpose of life is to maximize sense pleasure. However, if you understand that the goal of life is to engage in the loving service of God then you will reach a different conclusion. Pain is not the enemy, nor is pleasure the friend. They simply come and go. Sometimes you experience pain and sometimes you experience happiness. A devotee tries not to get wrapped up in either. Krsnadas Kaviraj Goswami is a perfect example of a devotee. He wrote down the pastimes of Lord Caitanya in the 15th Century. His writings are the most beautiful, educational, and poetic writings to be found anywhere in the world. He wrote it in his last days when his body was racked so fully of pain. Yet if you read what came out of his heart, you would never imagine that he was in pain. His writings are full of happiness and love. Even though the body was a great burden he didn’t try to escape it. He simply tried to serve God completely. This is a practical example of how a devotee approaches bodily pain. This Dr. Christian Bernard is saying that if you can’t enjoy then why exist. If you follow this idea to its logical conclusion then you will conclude that the handicapped, and children who are retarded should be killed. Children who are “unwanted” should be killed in the womb. After all, if they are unwanted, then they won’t have love and won’t be happy. It would be better for them to die. We are seeing this infanticide where a child born with some defect is let to starve to death. The underlying idea is that if the child can’t lead a “productive” life then it is better for them to die. Maybe he won’t grow up to be a corporate executive with 30 prostitutes, or maybe he can’t be “King Surfer”. Therefore kill the old people. Then the old people will protest “But we can still have sex, we still have some purpose in life.” This is why they are trying to convince people that sex forever is important. Because without sex there is no purpose to life in their world view. And kill the deformed babies and the unwanted babies. They will just be a burden to the taxpayers in welfare and prisons. This will also get in the way of our sense gratification. Its all about social cost theory. If someone somehow doesn’t measure up then they are impure. Kill the old. Kill the unwanted. Kill the blacks. Kill the Jews. Why do you think the Jews created Israel? Because everyone wanted to liquidate them. This is their standard. An old man can’t control his stool and urine. So they are thinking “This old man is costing the taxpayer $100 a day by taking up this bed.” And mothers are on welfare taking up tax dollars, so if we just get rid of them early on then the social cost is quite cheap. It is simply social cost theory. This is so demoniac. This Dr. Christian Bernard is crazy. These are all the fruits of demoniac civilization. Godly people can hardly live in this civilization. Still we do our best to try and change it by letting others know that there is a higher goal to life and that is to develop our love for God.

Actually, I think it would be the reverse. It is far more likely that the other photos have been touched up, with airbrushes, soft-lenses, what to speak of makeup, hair coloring etc… I remember a funny story about that lady singer who wrote “Where have all the cowboys gone?” I can’t remember her name. She did a cover photo for some magazine (perhaps Rolling Stone). When it came out she discovered that the magazine had airbrushed out her armpit hair (she wasn’t happy about this). Apparently it wasn’t very appealing for magazine sales /images/graemlins/smile.gif